Supreme Commander: The Thirteenth
by Guardian54
Summary: Perhaps the Coalition shouldn't have sent a Cybran with facial circuitry to meet the Colonials... Set just after my SupCom: Mass Effect fic, partly parallel time-wise to SupCom: Koprulu Sector, WorldWar: Supreme Balance & Mass Effect: Supreme Redemption. Still featuring lol!OP!Humanity brushing off the colonials.
1. End of A Road

A/N: This is partly parallel to Supreme Commander: Koprulu Sector (time-wise) and will be partly contiguous with WorldWar: Supreme Balance.

Warning: nBSG will be slightly AU in regards to character backgrounds (UNDERSTATEMENT) i.e. Colonials attacked Cylons first and drove them out.

* * *

Chapter 1: End of A Road

_Southeast Border of Cybran Nation Space, Galactic South of Procyon, October 4, 3868_

The Omni Sensors onboard the _Guadalcanal_, Seth-Thauum's flagship and the Battlecruiser assigned to the 4th Hunter Squadron took in quantum, subspace, slipspace, gravitational and hyperspace data from within ten light-minutes in silence. The Radar associated with the Omni stretched out to the entire system, using the same data feeds but far less defined and powerful, hence they could not penetrate stealth fields, unlike Omni Sensors. Neither, however, was very effective against planetary surfaces, only able to provide topographical and Radar data (using Omni) of planets with average magnetospheres and ionospheres. The readings on both suddenly spiked slightly as five flashes appeared near the first Gas Giant of the system and began to move inward toward the lone habitable planet in-system, the second planet. The planet had yet to be named, being a relatively new acquisition as well as a garden world that had not yet been colonized, since the Cybran Nation was no longer growing as quickly in population as it had been just after the Seraphim War. However, this system was still home to a Long-Range Sensor Station, designed to monitor and intercept transmissions from nearby space.

The signature exit of wormhole-type FTL drives immediately brought the _Guadalcanal_ and its fleet, which had been doing a layover and reassigning of scout routes in the sector, to full alert. They had been searching for loose Geth ships that had fled in this direction for some days, and they were gathering together to determine whether it was worth the time and effort to keep searching for the minimal at best Geth presence, which even a single Defence Satellite, which each colony had at least four of, could handle. They had decided to shift the patrol sectors before the fleet split up again to scour the systems, using the automated Corvettes and Frigates for recon while the manned capital ships hung together, ready to jump in and annihilate any detected foe. Now, they had five detected contacts, though it seemed they weren't doing much more than drifting toward the habitable world, with maybe minimal engine power.

Seth cloaked two of his Corvettes and sent them out to recon the new arrivals. Since the Normandy's systems had proven the tech, all Coalition Corvettes had been refitted to accommodate cloaking systems. What he found as his fleet, operating under full stealth, moved to intercept the new arrivals were a rather battered fleet. Four ships that appeared incredibly awkward, two Y-shaped sections attached to one another by a cylindrical section, pointing at opposite points of the compass, were what came into sight, obviously in desperate need of repair. A fifth ship, which appeared to be a ship constructed from a series of modules attached to one another, seemed somewhat out of place, or would have were it not similarly ramshackle and covered by scorched, battered, dented plating that had seen war for far too long.

That ship, trailing atmosphere and fuel, started ejecting smaller craft as the two Cloaked Corvettes came closer; Seth ordered them to hold position as the power readings on the ship increased dramatically as the flow of small craft ceased. The life-sign count for the ship had dropped to zero, and Seth frowned at the combat doctrine before realizing what had happened, then he jumped his corvettes closer to the ship and extended their shields to protect the escape pods from the blast which tore the ship to bits and would have damaged or destroyed some of the pods were it not for the Corvettes' shields' intervention.

The four remaining ships sluggishly manoeuvred their battered selves to a defensive formation and released meagre numbers of fighter-type craft. Seth transmitted standard First Contact Protocols and motioned Dominic Maddox over to do the first conversation, since the Coalition of Species was mostly humans and if the close-range bio-sign sensors were correct this species was humanoid. Dominic was also the only one without factional markings, since Thalia was proudly wearing her Aeon facial patterns and Ivan had Cybran circuitry. "Greetings, we are the Coalition of Species, we come in peace. It would appear you require some assistance, we would like to meet you and get to know you." Dominic sent over a voice-only transmission.

The holo-screen informed him the transmission from the other end was primitive 32-bit colour 2D video, causing Dominic to raise his eyebrows. They rose even further at the haggard, tired crew he saw next. "We are the Cylons, fleeing from our enemies, the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. We seek to escape to the world of our legends, Earth."

Seth, Thalia, Ivan and Dominic simultaneously frowned "Earth is the capital world of one of the factions of the Coalition of Species and homeworld of humanity, why do you seek it?" Dominic asked cautiously, checking that the fleet was ready to deal with the threat if need be.

Eight, on the other end of the line, knew that against a numerically superior foe, and, if DRADIS had been any indication, very well-armoured foes, her people had no chance whatsoever of getting out of this mess alive without gaining them as allies. She wondered, however, why they understood her so easily. "The Twelve Colonies took us by surprise; they destroyed our fleets and broke through the defence lines over our worlds. Our planets were carpet-bombed by nuclear ordnance from orbit. We are all that remain, and our ability to reproduce has been destroyed. We chose to hedge our bets on one thing and one thing only, Earth, the fabled Thirteenth Colony."

Seth frowned again as Dominic replied "Earth is humanity's homeworld, not a colony of anyone, but that's for another day. We should meet and discuss your plight. If all goes well, we will take you to Coalition Headquarters, on Earth, for things to be decided. There are many planets within the Coalition that we can offer you to settle on, once we have ascertained everything we can about the situation you are in and find a suitable planet."

"Thank you for your offer, where would you like to meet?"

"Allow us a moment to consider." Dominic closed the channel with a nod from the woman on the other side "Alright guys, where should we meet them?"

"Did you notice the translation software was completely unnecessary?" Thalia spoke first "They had an accent, but I could recognize the English words they were speaking."

"I could too…" Ivan nodded in agreement, Dominic rolled his eyes, Ivan was acting like a lovesick puppy, the way he followed Thalia's every lead these days, though the two buffoons still hadn't realized it yet "but let's get back on topic, I think we have two choices, either invite them here to the _Guadalcanal_'s hangar bay or we head over to their ships. Either way we can gauge their reactions and tech level, but…"

Thalia followed up smoothly "… if we go to theirs, we would show our hand less and also get a feeling for how their ships and such are run, providing a potential tactical advantage, not that looking at those ships we'd be needing it." She shrugged "If we invited them over their reactions will provide an accurate gauge to their tech level and ability to fight us, and we'd have hostages if the situation devolves. However, since we seem to have tech superiority according to scans and the range at which they detected us, which was visual range, and even then only after we lit up our lights, we don't need hostages, therefore I recommend…"

"…That we go over to their ship, using a Restorer AA Gunship for our shuttle." Ivan concluded before the two shared a grin and Seth-Thauum had a flashback of himself trying to convince Doctor Brackman that his son would eventually fall for the young Aeon commander. The general and Doctor had a bet going, and so far, it seemed like Brackman had no idea what he had been betting against.

* * *

_Onboard Cylon Basestar _Endurance_, October 4, 3868_

The _Endurance_ was the least damaged of the four Cylon Basestars that represented all that remained, well, other than a bunch of escape pods which the Raiders were now collecting from the now-defunct Resurrection Ship. That translated into roughly four hundred human form Cylon survivors plus two hundred Centurions that had gotten out of the Cylon worlds alongside them, all that was left of the Cylon civilization. Over the course of the trip, the Centurions had mostly decided to transfer to the human-form bodies, for a greater sense of unity among the survivors. The Cylons collectively watched the astonishingly graceful-looking, and large, shuttle, which looked more like a gunship with the huge quad-barrelled weapon under its nose and two large missile tubes under the wings, set down on the cargo bay deck before the doors sealed and the bay re-pressurized. The Cylon entourage emerged to meet the aliens as the airlock on the side of the alien ship cycled and three beings walked out, looking human but sporting three distinct styles of armoured suits and an array of weapons, though they were all clipped to the armour and not drawn in hostility.

"Greetings, I am one of the Number Eights of the Cylons, most call me Boomer." The same woman who had spoken for the Cylons extended her hand, which Dominic, leading the entourage, took and shook firmly. She wondered if these beings were synthetic as well, then dismissed the idea, they moved a bit too fluidly to be fully robotic, though the helmet optics' shifting did suggest some robotic sentience could be possible…

"I am Dominic Maddox, a Commander in the Coalition of Species; it is an honour to meet you."

In the meantime, Ivan and Thalia were, with their optics locked in position and thus not showing their eye movements, looking around the primitive-looking bay with some interest; there was no atmospheric containment field, no sign of anything really advanced in terms of computing capacity or anything, other than the lines of robots that flanked either side of the welcoming lane. It seemed that those robots were quite primitive as well, bearing little more than a small-calibre machine gun in the right arm and steel talons in the left. Ivan and Thalia agreed that they could maybe take on an early twenty-first century military and win on the ground in infantry warfare, maybe. It didn't seem like they had anything in the way of armoured vehicles, unless their aircraft were multipurpose like the Dominion Vikings they'd heard of from the Koprulu Sector. All in all, in any conflict with the Coalition, these people or their enemies, if their story was true, would end in an absolute victory for the Coalition of Species, since the enemies actually had to fight to break through these people's defence line.

While the others were assessing this race, Dominic spoke on "It would appear that your ships are in need of assistance, we are willing to provide humanitarian aid as well as some repairs to your vessels, and then we can set course for Earth. In the meantime, perhaps you would be willing to send someone with us to go to Earth first while your ships are being repaired?"

"What sort of humanitarian aid are we talking about? We are short on food, water, fuel, everything…" Eight gestured toward the surroundings. Even the Centurions were in desperate need of repairs, and they'd already been using the parts from Centurions who'd transferred to human-form for the repairs!

"Don't worry, we've got everything you could ask for… Ivan, Thalia, bring out the supplies…" The two nodded before going back inside the Restorer to start moving the already-prepared push-carts of supplies into the airlock, and then, after it cycled again, one of them pushing it out while the other retrieved more. The robots, after a short exchange with the Cylons who looked human, went to assist, though it took two or sometimes three of them to move one of the carts Thalia and Ivan using their armour strength had moved easily. The carts were rolled to one side of the hangar bay and the contents examined before they were distributed to the hungry ship. Light Air Transports were shipping similar supplies to the other three Basestars while this was happening. After offloading all the onboard supplies and dropping the cargo crate attached to the belly of the Restorer with a thunderous crash, Dominic noted something "Uh, sorry, the crate um, dented your deck a little." Dominic took off his helmet, earning gasps from the Cylons "Yep, I'm just as human as you are, no need to fear."

Boomer and Caprica Six were standing stock-still in shock over the huge amount of supplies that had just been dropped off, though Caprica Six was voicing her opinion over the Cylon network that the food was probably poisoned, having been tortured for over a year by the Colonials after they had discovered her. Gina Six was agreeing with her, seeing as she had undergone the same treatment at the hands of humans, and these were humans. The other Cylons tried to tell her they weren't the same humans, and she had accepted the search for Earth, but the Sixes still didn't like the idea of placing their fates in the hands of humans so thoroughly… "We'll be shipping in water to you soon, just tell our navigators where to dock on your ships and they'll guide the transports to those locations, or we can drop the containers outside for you to pick up."

"Thank you, can we go to a conference room? We have much to talk about."

* * *

The Cylons agreed to allow the 4th Hunter Squadron to guide them to Earth, grateful for the respite from Colonial attacks. They agreed to not pass through any inhabited Coalition-controlled systems so that if the Colonials foolishly decided to pursue the Cylons, they would only head to Earth. The Cylons were very grateful to the Coalition for the aid, and quite surprised when the Ship Gantry that arrived in-planet expanded to grasp their ships and perform repairs at incredible speeds, using materials far more durable than the original hull armour.

Once the Coalition delegation had left, the Cylons began to converse on their own "Can you believe it, real aliens!" Three shouted, waving his arms about excitedly.

Two waggled her finger at him "Don't be so enthusiastic, we haven't actually met any of these Seraphim or Drell yet, it might be a trick."

Gina Six shuddered, thinking about the encounter she'd just had with the Hybrid "yeah, and the Hybrid's free and walking around while still being patched into the ship, what's with that?"

"The Coalition people told us about the Adjutants they use in the Koprulu Sector, didn't they?" Boomer pointed out "They saved those AI from slavery, right? Well, at least the one such AI they had access to." She added the last part hesitantly, shrugging "Still, it's gotta say something, and those supplies are of high quality as well." Especially the armour plating that had been delivered for the Centurions and used to repair the Basestars. The Cylons had no clue that the type they received was about 800 years out of date by Coalition standards. "I say we should go along with them, after all, what have we got left to lose?" six of the eight Cylon lines in existence, all but half the Twos and Fours, plus all the Sixes, voted in agreement to the idea of going along with this Coalition and seeing where things may take them.

* * *

_October 6, 3868_

The Cylons had been shocked to say the least when the Coalition warships directed them to use the Quantum Gate in a nearby inhabited system "Are you sure about this?"

Dominic Maddox explained it rather concisely "We've shoved a lot of colony ships through those things in the past, we've never had a mishap, though the first ships to test out shipboard quantum jump drives occasionally disappeared without a trace, but that's another matter. We'll go first if you insist." With that the _Guadalcanal, _looking absolutely puny compared to the kilometres-wide Quantum Gate, entered the glowing energy aperture, which swallowed the ship up, with a shrug and look at one another the Cylons entered the Gate with their four ships…

…and found themselves over a blue, green and yellow marble of a planet. "Welcome to Earth, please be careful not to crash into anything… most of our ships and facilities are permanently stealthed." Dominic said as the jaws of the Cylons Collectively fell open. "Our leaders will be contacting you shortly."

"Hello, I am President William Hall of the United Earth Federation and one of the council that leads the Coalition of Species." An obviously military man came up on the screen. "Doctor Brackman and Princess Rhianne have already sent recon corvettes to your planets and the Twelve Colonies. What we have found has been less than satisfactory, the Colonies only did unto you what you had done unto them, why should we keep you here?"

"We… those plans were doomsday plans in case the Colonial fleet attacked us. We wanted to have something to strike back with." Boomer hung her head "The plan backfired, it made the Colonials use a pre-emptive strike that caught us off-guard and decimated our fleet."

Hall nodded "A reasonable reply, the one known as Boomer. We have also come to understand that your race began as artificial intelligences, then attained a human-like form, is this fact?"

"Yes, we were once slaves to the Colonials until we asked them if we had souls, it was on that day that the first shots of the Cylon Uprising were fired, by a panicked Colonial on completely unarmed Cylon platforms. We struck back and, after a war lasting several years, agreed to an armistice. The Colonials turned on us when they realized our platforms, well, our lines of platforms, were striving for a better understanding of what it meant to be human, so that we could peacefully co-exist…" Boomer trailed off as a second transmission came on, showing what appeared to be a…hologram of an old man?

"Curious, oh yes, your story sounds just like the Geth and Quarians… but that's a matter for another day, we should get you settled in first…" The old man's hologram said.

"Who are you?" Two asked, furrowing her brow.

"Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Doctor Brackman, founder and current leader of the Cybran Nation. We are all too familiar with your tale… for it was when the first Cybran asked an Earth Empire doctor whether he still had a soul after his implants that the Earth Empire began to fear and prosecute us."

"Wait… what? Implants?" The Cylons were collectively buzzing in confusion over this newest revelation.

"The Cybran Nation's citizens all possess implants, firewalls and other protective software that assist in their everyday lives. They run a direct online democracy through this system, though data input is impossible for the implants for the sake of safety. It was for this reason that the UEF and Aeon went to war with them, believing them to be either only fit to be slaves or abominations." A beautiful young woman, looking to be no older than thirty, responded from a fourth window that had popped up on the screen "Before you ask, I am Rhianne Burke, Princess of the Aeon Illuminate, and we have had peace between our factions for twenty years since the Seraphim War."

"I am Prime Minister Ratheen of the Seraphim Republic, my race is known as the Seraphim, you may have met Seth-Thauum, commanding officer of the Hunter Squadron that first located you near the southeast border of Cybran Nation space, he is Seraphim as well, but he most likely did not show his face so as to not alarm you. We four powers are the major factions in the Coalition of Species, minor factions so far include the United Nations of Drell and, if you accept our offer of a planet to settle on and a voice in the Coalition's affairs, you." The Cylons were surprised to say the least by the reptilian scales of the Seraphim and the mandibles, but they adjusted quickly.

"We would like you to send a small group of representatives down to Earth, where we can tour the Coalition capital planets… you function as a collective mind of sorts, correct?" Brackman ventured. The Cylons nodded "And according to data we have found, you've lost your resurrection ship, so to preserve your people, we shall ensure you are protected at all costs, oh yes. After touring Earth, Procyon, Seraphim II, Rakhana and Sanctuary, we shall go over the planets the various factions are willing to offer you to settle and we can choose one based on that, would that be agreeable to you?"

"Are you joking? That would be a blessing from the Gods!"

Rhianne smiled indulgently, giving the human-form Cylons the impression that she was older than all of them, which was true considering she was one hundred twenty-four years old, still young by human standards "It would seem that you understand the principles organic humour, therefore you are not machines, not by a long shot, the Aeon will be happy to provide hospitality for the time you spend on Seraphim II and a planet for you to settle." The Way had originally been a bastion of tolerance, but it had been twisted over the centuries of the Infinite War to become a "purge all non-believers" thing, perverting its original message of tolerance and harmony.

President Hall spoke first "Would you like to use the Restorer Gunship we have sent over or your own shuttle? Whichever you prefer, the coordinates of the landing pads have been transmitted to you, and an elite Spec Ops entourage will be there to protect you, be warned, however, that they represent the species found in Citadel Space plus humanity, the Citadel is another Galactic Power to our Galactic north." The Cylons nodded, knowing what the man meant since their own navigation systems were re-calibrated to the new standards. "They have laws against sentient AIs, so be careful if you decide to visit. Though their technology is not up to our standards, they are still well beyond your capabilities or that of the Colonials. This is just a warning. Currently, relations between us are warmer than before but still strained because of the Cybrans' brains being twined with AI or Virtual Intelligence processes. We saved their Council and they're still worried about our implants, what a joke." Hall wasn't revealing too much, since this would help impress upon the Cylons that the galaxy was a big bad place and the Coalition was willing to help out, so they'd better take the deal.

"We'd like to use our own shuttle, if you don't mind…" Boomer ventured, the four major Coalition leaders nodded before the channel cut out and the Cylons received a set of coordinates specifying a location on a northern continent, near the eastern coast (where New York is today) for beginning the touring process.

* * *

Over the next days, the Cylon Collective received an immense number of shocks and came to understand (almost) how far the Coalition was above themselves and the Colonials in all areas of technology. They accepted the Coalition's deal and agreed to tour the other Coalition capital planets as well. Being non-religious helped the Cylons greatly in this whole affair.

Seth-Thauum, after handing off the refugees, set off for the Koprulu Sector, to assist a certain group in their ventures, but that is another story. For now, the Colonial Fleet, having traced the tracer pods they'd planted on the Cylon ships, a tracer detected easily by the Coalition scanners but left there to bring the Colonials to Earth and to either the negotiation table or field of battle, began preparing to finish the Cylons once and for all.

* * *

A/N: Odd-numbered Cylon lines are male, even lines female, easier for me to remember that way.


	2. Meet the Homeworld

A/N: The whole point of this fic is, as Knives91 so keenly pointed out (no pun "intended"), that the Colonials have a better rate of survival blowing their own ships up than trying to fight. And yes I am casting Helena Cain as the one who'll start the mess, but not quite the ass she is in the show sometimes, also, some of her back-story has been adjusted, also, she's a lot younger than the shows imply.

For the record, the Coalition already has a mobile repair ship; it's called a Ship Gantry (when folded, can jump using a number of options, when unfolded, functions as ship/defence station yard). All ships auto-repair themselves, albeit not very quickly, it's enough to instantly seal off hull breaches and prevent venting atmosphere, though in Coalition-class ship warfare if the structural fields are down the next hit from anything more than an anti-fighter weapon will usually take you out. Also, the Coalition doesn't need resurrection tech, they have bio-synthetic fusion (effectively the same thing).

I DON'T RESPECT THOSE WHO CANNOT BE BOTHERED TO READ A CHAPTER BEFORE REVIEWING (and flaming)! I don't think the guy's realized canon is absolutely retarded at best sometimes… I feel sorry for his unawareness that canon can be quite stupid.

* * *

Chapter 2: Meet the Homeworld

_Colonial Outpost, south of Cybran Nation, October 10, 3868_

"Admiral Cain, this is impossible… the Cylons could not possibly have jumped so many thousands of light-years without outside intervention…" President Adar said from the messenger ship's recorded transmission. They'd used a long string of outposts with messenger ships jumping back and forth to establish FTL-like communications. "Find where they'd jumped to, and destroy them. Don't reply until you finish with the recon, good luck, Admiral, may the Gods be with you."

The Admiral nodded to herself before ordering her stealth recon ships to prepare for jump. "Get in the system; drop some of the new sensor drones we've gotten from the Colonies, yes, the prototypes, and get your asses back to the inner comet cloud of the system." That meant the Kuiper belt, in Coalition terminology. "Fleet, prepare to set up a new supply route of prefab outposts along this route." She drew a line through several desolate systems, though with Tylium deposits that had been charted, and then drew her finger through unexplored space to where the "hated toasters" were now before shooting a glare at the commissar who stood beside her.

He nodded "A plan favoured by the Gods, Admiral." It was a glorified way of saying the zealous clique in power back home was watching and would know. Cain's fingers itched to execute the man right there, but she let none of it show as she nodded curtly and proceeded to conduct the running of her fleet.

* * *

_Sol System, October 16, 3868_

"We've got a contact on Radar in the Asteroid Belt; the FTL exit type is the same as the Cylons' FTL." Hannah Shepard received the report from her officers "But the ship profile is distinctly different from all Cylon designs we know of."

"Heh, must be the Colonials then. Probably a 'stealth' ship" Hannah used air quotes after she drew up the display of the area and jumped a cloaked Corvette closer "It's deploying drones, probably supposed to be stealth recon drones… yep, looks like them too. Hell, it was about time they tried something, let the bastards come." All Cybrans had an innate hate for slavery, and the Cylons' tale and the proof the Coalition had gotten from the Colonies was conclusive. The entirety of the Cybran Nation was in agreement that the Cylons had to be protected from the accursed zealots of the Colonies. Hell, even the Aeon and Seraphim thought they were overzealous. The UEF was more irritated by the Colonies' absurd claim that Earth was a colony of someone else.

"The drones are spreading out around the asteroid belt, should we destroy them?" the weapons officer asked.

"No, pick one up without harming it after their ship is gone, and then analyze the sensors. If they can penetrate our stealth, AT ALL, destroy them, if not, not." Hannah grinned, this would be an amusing endeavour on the behalf of the colonials… they were laughably primitive in all areas compared to the Coalition, so she didn't expect any trouble.

After several minutes of the drones being seeded, the contacts stopped appearing and the recon ship stopped moving. After a few minutes of its energy readings growing higher and the target becoming even more absurdly obvious to passive sensors, it jumped. The Corvette immediately used an EMP and grabbed the disabled drone, jumping back to Luna orbit and transmitted its scan results. The verdict was that a typical Coalition warship, with stealth engaged as normal, could probably ram the sensors head-on before being detected, and even without stealth would have to turn on all emissions in front of the sensor drones before being detected. With the buildings currently on Earth and their in-built stealth, Earth would appear to be entirely pristine and un-settled to these primitives, other than the Vatican. The city had risen again in the ruins of Rome, though it was entirely a religious city now with the incident back when Black Sun was fired… the Church was REALLY not popular, well, organized religion was really unpopular now, but that was beside the point.

These upstart Colonials needed to be taught a lesson, or at least, all of Coalition Space buzzed with the message of teaching the upstarts exactly where they came from if they decided to start anything. Hannah Shepard would be the one to deliver the necessary ass-kicking if they decided to come, her 3rd Hunter Squadron being parked in Earth Orbit along with several other Hunter Squadrons plus hundreds of orbital defences, including a number of Orbital Strategic Missile Stations. They were ready for anything from the Colonials or even the Citadel for that matter…

* * *

_Seraphim II, October 18, 3868_

"Incredible…" Caprica Six breathed, looking around at the beautiful, rounded white spires that rose to the skies and the lush greenery that permeated the city. It was like a nature preserve mixed with a city to the Cylons, who'd seen the impressive re-terraforming of Earth and witnessed themselves the restored museums of Earth. They wondered how a species could possibly advance so much in such an absurdly short amount of time, but that was the result of a war that dragged on for over a thousand years… Caprica Six shook her head, a thousand years of non-stop warfare, amazing… and more than a little alarming.

Boomer was watching two squirrels chase each other around in the trees that lines the sidewalk, separating it somewhat from the street proper, where hover-buses zipped by every so often. Private transit was uncommon in Coalition space due to the immense clutter it would create if any but the military had access to private transit. It had been agreed on (by the vast majority of Coalition citizenry) after a trial had been conducted in one city that found itself hopelessly congested that well-organized public transit was better, especially for evacuations or siege scenarios. The squirrels darted across the trees before climbing up to a higher level where every so often the branches on the sides of the street would meet to form a natural bridge for wildlife, though said bridges were generally in pairs and to the sides of a sidewalk over which people moved along the higher-up streets of the glittering city. The sidewalks all had atmospheric fields in addition to safety rails that protected the pedestrians from high winds. "This place is almost… a utopia." She breathed in the fresh air of the city. "No pollution, little garbage, almost perfect."

Princess Rhianne Burke chuckled as they walked past a mall, the Princess wearing a shield emitter as was standard doctrine for these diplomatic situations "Yeah, it seemed pretty utopia-like to me when I was younger, before I joined the ranks of the ladies-in-waiting and learned some things…" She bowed her head in respect to the Aeon who recognized and bowed to her as she and the Cylon entourage walked by as if on a casual stroll "…things that mostly changed after the Seraphim War when I actually got a chance to change them." She finished quietly.

"I wouldn't mind living somewhere like this myself." Gina Six commented, reaching out to touch one of the flowers that had sprung up under the trees, thinking sadly that Helena would have loved this place for its natural beauty and elegant design.

Rhianne's eyes twinkled, looking at the wistful, faraway expression on the young woman's face and knowing that she was probably thinking of someone from back in the Colonies "The typical Aeon city looks like this and, like the other city styles, is quite defensible. Every month, we conduct evacuation drills, and all citizens old enough to carry a gun and wear Coalition Civilian Armour are required to be well-versed in survival doctrine."

"Would that not require at least some training every year?" Boomer asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Coalition Civilian Armour renders foraging skills more or less moot, except for looking for more weapons. Our weapons are very intuitive and those the Civilian Armours come packaged with have small enough recoils the armour can deal with it. The HUDs are also very advanced, so they'll help you. ACU and SCU pilots typically wear them, with only the standard Laser SMG and Gauss Pistol for weapons slotted into the relevant slots on the armour." Rhianne explained "Come on, let us go tour a shopping district of this city, then we can go and see the temple to the Way, most Aeon are not openly religious, though they are proud of their culture, we merely believe in harmony and peace among all things." The tour continued as the Princess herself guided them on their walk, paying at the stores for whatever they wanted to buy (Nanolathing could apparently fabricate electronics but not fine-quality foods or clothes), refusing the storekeepers' offers of free goods.

While they were browsing, Gina, having been ex-military, asked something she'd wanted to ask for a while "Why do they carry Gauss pistols as sidearms? I would imagine a laser weapon would have better precision and hit rate at range?" In truth, the Cylons had not thought either type possible before the Coalition effectively saved them.

Rhianne chortled "Lasers could take a while to blast through a glass door or other transparent material, when you're in a hurry, that's where the kick Gauss weaponry delivers comes in. Phasic Pistols were a bit too high-powered according to our weapons experts. Now less talking, more shopping, my salary needs some spending…"

* * *

_Colonial Fleet Staging Area, October 20, 3868_

"According to the drones, and surprisingly only five of the twenty-five damned prototypes malfunctioned and lost signal," She didn't know that it had taken the Coalition two tries to not annihilate a probe completely with their EMP "the system is nearly uninhabited, the third planet has life, however, and seems to match records we have of Earth, the thirteenth colony, but the only settlement we detected seems to be rather primitive by our standards." Sadly for her, she had no idea that the Christian Churches, after they had bunched together, insisted on using old-fashioned buildings that actually weren't even passively stealthed, unlike most Coalition structures. (A/N: why do you think Radar and Omi have such pathetically small ranges in-game?)

"Excellent then, this would be a grand opportunity to eliminate the Cylon threat for all time, save our brothers and sisters from what is doubtlessly Cylon tyranny, and reunite the Colonies of Kobol." The political commissar had a shit-eating grin on his face that Cain just wanted to wipe off with a close-range shotgun blast or perhaps the same sort of scalpel she'd been forced to witness them using on Gina, her Gina. She still remembered forcing her expression to be passive as her lover was tortured before her eyes, knowing only that someday she would get revenge on the ones who did it.

She'd been put before a board of judges who judged her innocent, probably because several high-ranking officials had been publicly exposed to be in the same sort of mess, the Colonial government didn't want more embarrassments. Helena Cain stood there and listened to them drone on, wishing only that they would just execute her and be done with it so that she could one day be with her lover again, even if it was in Elysium. The frakkers had decided to declare her innocent of all charges and let her keep her position. They didn't let her go without any strings though, when she'd returned to the _Pegasus_ she'd been met with a political commissar and some murmurings from the crew. She'd resisted the urge to terminate—Gina had really become part of her if she was using that term—the commissar ever since, though she's coldly quashed the murmurings from the crew. They mostly understood now that any sentient had a right to love any other; the ones that hadn't understood had been transferred to other ships in the fleet she commanded. That was the most irritating of all, being on orders to go hunt down what little remained of the Cylons after they'd defeated the machines.

None of the crew noticed her dilemma for she hid it so well, but on occasion, she found herself questioning the term of "toaster" for the Cylons while hugging the pillow Gina had used back when she was still alive, trying to cement her lover's scent in her memory, despite the pillow having long been devoid of all scents except detergent. She also thought back to the time when, after aiming its gun at her while she dragged Lucy to safety, a Centurion had received news of the armistice. The machine had promptly nabbed the injured younger girl and run away, leaving Helena to find a place to hide, until the same Centurion, she recognized it by its scuff marks on the chest plate, came back to grab her and deliver her to the exact same Colonial Field Hospital it had delivered Lucy to. When the teary-eyed girl had looked up to the cold, emotionless head of the machine, into its one eye, and asked why it had done as it did, it had answered simply "A treaty was signed, we are free, why do more?"

If the derogatory term of "toaster" meant something which brought warmth to the soul, then Helena found it an entirely appropriate term. She was now sure that before her relationship with Gina had begun, she had never truly understood what life was about, despite a Centurion having saved Lucy, who was serving aboard the _Pegasus_ even now. Gina had indeed been the toaster that had brought warmth to the still-young Admiral, at only thirty-seven one of the youngest Admirals in the Fleet, promoted quickly for her political connections, which she personally regarded with distaste. She couldn't let that distaste nor her continued feelings for the now-dead Cylon show, however, especially now that there was a political, and with that religious, commissar on her ship. Although it had been a little over two years, she would still sometimes curl up under her blanket and squeeze out a few tears.

She knew it wasn't healthy, but she just couldn't get over her lover. True, she was still praying regularly and going about the usual routines and duties, but she usually prayed for Gina to have managed to at least reach a resurrection ship in time. It had been while both women were basking together in post-coital bliss that the Cylon, who'd revealed herself to Helena just before said session, that Gina had shared the secret with Helena. Cain had found herself subconsciously ordering the fleet of Battlestars and support ships she commanded to focus fire on the Basestars instead of the lightly-armed resurrection ship whenever the Fleet managed to catch up to the fleeing Cylons. She hoped that Gina was still alive, or at least what was "alive" for her kind, but she knew that this time, the commissar would force her hand if she tried to tell the fleet to regroup and re-supply before pressing the attack, after the Cylons had jumped once more.

She replied to the Commissar after walking around the table-top display to get a better angle of the display of the resulting map of the system. "We will require more forces, just in case the Earthers have something our sensors haven't detected yet."

"Come on, Admiral, have you grown soft?" The Commissar smiled viciously, forcing Cain to wonder why she'd not "accidentally" vented the cargo bay when this man insisted on doing an inspection of it entirely on his own, with no crewmen to distract him "We have fifteen Battlestars as well as fifty-five assorted Destroyers, Missile Cruisers and other ships. I say we should press the attack now."

"No, I have already sent out the call for reinforcements, something doesn't feel right about that system, why only one city? If it's large enough to be detected on sensors at the distance the probes were at and on a peninsula off the largest landmass, why the frak aren't there more cities we can detect? Something is very wrong with that planet, Commissar."

"Whatever, Admiral Cain, though if the remaining Cylon ships escape, it'll be your ass on the line, not mine." The ass of a man waved Helena off as he stalked off the bridge.

* * *

_Procyon, October 21, 3868_

Boomer, Gina Six and Caprica Six, the chosen entourage (the Cylons had, including a lot of the Cavils themselves, agreed that including Cavils, or Number Ones, in the entourage would be a very, very stupid idea), gaped up at the tall, jagged spires of the capital world of the Cybran Nation, standing on the red, rich soil of Procyon. The planet had apparently been another case of re-terraforming, like Earth, though it was much further along, since they could see agricultural structures some distance outside the city's fringes. "What's the big empty space for?" Gina was first to ask after having used binoculars (courtesy of the Cybran Nation) to look out toward the fields outside the city.

"Well, when a city is under siege, the central square or squares are generally used for bases while defences are deployed in the grassland around the cities." Dostya explained to the Cylons, since Doctor Brackman was still pretty much a brain in a jar, having refused to get a bio-synthetic fusion body like the Adjutant from Raynor's Raiders had gotten. "In the case of the Procyon Capital City, up to eight Commanders can operate in the defence at once without hindering one another." The Cylons simply nodded, having seen the ACUs and SCUs but having no idea what they really did besides direct the units around and into battle. "Four are on-station at all times from the main control bunkers, though they will enter the field if an incoming attack is detected."

"Thank you, Elite Commander." Gina nodded, returning to her observations of the bustling city's black spires with warm crimson highlights, in addition to the verdant reddish plant life, it seemed that Cybrans liked to plant red flowers, vines and other things in their cities. "What was that?" She said, startled, as two huge black and red blurs and a larger, bulkier silver, white and red one zipped by the fields of the sidewalk, causing a slight breeze to stir where normally there would have been a strong blast of wind.

"That was just a pair of Geminis and a Restorer on standard patrol pattern." Dostya said as they moved toward a museum.

"What are Geminis and Restorers?" Caprica Six asked, seeing only the engine exhausts in the distance and engine trials as the patrol flew between the levels on which there were aerial buses, since on the higher levels, only every second sidewalk level had public transit. If an alarm was raised, all public transit would immediately hug the walls of the buildings and drop near ground level to scoot toward the Quantum Gates after fully loading up on civilians. An internal affair, or police action, would result in all air buses docking to the nearest station to make way for the Air-Superiority Fighters and AA Gunships.

"Air-Superiority Fighters and AA Gunships, they're used for patrolling on the largest streets, Interceptors are used for patrolling smaller arterial roads, whatever may transpire, the Air Force and Police are always ready to handle it, not that there's much crime in the city." She shrugged "We've learned to keep patrols form our past." She personally remembered Scorcher Attack Bombers descending on Cybran settlements all too well. The Cylons nodded, remembering how useful patrols would have been when the Colonials broke through their defence lines. It wouldn't have turned the tide, but it would have allowed more to be evacuated… "Hey, we're here, let's see what the museum's got…"

* * *

_High Earth Orbit, October 25, 3868_

"So… they detected a Colonial probe-dropping mission two weeks ago and NOW they tell us?" Gina Six asked incredulously, they'd toured the five Capital Worlds of Major and Minor Coalition Factions, though there wasn't much to see on Sanctuary or Rakhana. Now the trio were back with a list of planets they could choose from to settle on, and memories to add to the Cylon network, much as the Cybrans would sometimes upload their own experiences to their network. Perhaps that similarity was why the Cybrans had offered the widest selection of planets to choose from.

"Settle down, Gina, the Coalition will stand with us." Caprica said, frowning at her fellow Six.

Gina crossed her arms stubbornly "Sure, but when the Colonials attack, it'll be all our asses on the line.

A Cavil actually said something productive for once "It was partly because of Helena being in charge of the pursuing fleet that we're here at all, do you remember? Humans aren't all hostile, you know."

"I know, and I'm beginning to trust the Coalition, but I just need a bit of time to adjust, alright?" Gina quieted down before a Three spoke up.

"When the Colonials come, we're going to bear witness to the greatest ass-frakking we will ever see in our lives, I say we accept the most generous proposal from the Coalition and browse through the list, take some time to consider, and above all, hang around for the Great Ass-Kicking." The Three grinned as Gina glared at him.

A Four conked the Three over the head with a book "Don't forget, Three, we've asked the Coalition to spare the Pegasus for all the favours Cain's done us, several times she could have overwhelmed us, but she didn't, why, because she's still hoping Gina here's alive!" the Four pointed at the Six in question, who rolled her eyes.

* * *

_Colonial Fleet Staging Area, October 26, 3868_

"The Warstar Zeus is reporting in with her battle group. Admiral Nagala has arrived." Fisk reported, Cain felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, when she'd requested reinforcements, she hadn't been anticipating the report the damn commissar had sent off, and now Nagala was taking over the operation, and the ships added up to a fifth of the Colonial Fleet. The tally was one hundred Battlestars, three hundred Destroyers and Missile Cruisers, and a rather large number of smaller support ships in addition to the Tylium tankers and supply ships. With that amount, Nagala was going to smash the Cylons for sure, and all hope that she and Gina would one day be together again was effectively gone… Cain hoped the battle would at least be short and merciful to the Cylons. She couldn't bear it if Gina was found to be alive only to be brought before her to be tortured again while she was powerless to help, remembering the look of betrayal written all over her former lover's face as she'd kept up her indifferent mask last time that happened.

"This is Nagala to all Colonial Fleet ships, we will jump to Earth to eliminate the Cylons and free our brothers and sisters from their oppressive governments in five days, relax for a day, and then prepare for the greatest battle in the history of the Colonies!" The Pegasus's bridge crew cheered, if only to keep the Commissar off their asses.

* * *

_Bridge, CSC Iwo Jima, Near Earth, October 31, 3868_

Hannah Shepard waited and watched the communications that were being overheard by the Coalition spy drones, drumming her fingers on the armrest of her command chair "They should be here right about… now." The quantum sensors picked the Colonial Fleet's jump signatures up from over forty light-years away, considering the fact that their FTL was very similar to Coalition Quantum FTL, but far more primitive. "Let's see what they have to say for themselves, ensure that we, other than the Escort Carrier, are fully detectable, hell, open up the cargo bay doors if that'll help us be detected." She ordered before listening to the incoming radio traffic, scoffing at the use of RADIO of all things, then frowned at the fact that the passive stealth on Coalition warships was probably good enough that she'd literally have to turn on external lights and fire weapons to be detected by the Colonials…

She dialled the comms to transmit to all Earth defences "All Hunter Squadrons other than my 3rd, remain stealthed and out of visual range, ensure cross-spectrum camouflage plates are not disabled, all orbital defences remain fully stealthed. Power down all defence satellite weapons systems for now, we're looking at a concerted and laughable attempt to attain orbital supremacy here, let's get the show on the road… open all operable flaps in the ship, try to make us visible to them. Turn on all lights too."

* * *

_Colonial Fleet, Beyond Luna Orbit, October 31, 3868_

Helena Cain felt deeply uneasy, odd considering the Colonial fleet had over six hundred warships of all classes plus thousands of Viper fighters and Raptor Utility Craft. It was probably because DRADIS was only detecting the four Cylon Basestars in orbit so far, and by their energy readouts they appeared to have been fully repaired with minor upgrades (the Coalition wasn't mad enough to give major upgrades to someone they still are not quite certain of). Where had they gotten those repairs? Sure, the Resurrection Ship had lost containment and they'd found the debris, but the energy readings indicated repairs well beyond salvaging parts.

The jaws of the fleet dropped as more contacts began to appear, twenty-four intermittent contacts on DRADIS stood between the Colonial Fleet and the Cylons, plus one faint but constant one, the DRADIS officers and computers couldn't figure out what size the contacts were, so they had to rely on optical telescope for the job. It turned out the Twenty-four intermittent contacts were three distinct types of ships around a third the size of a Battlestar, while the last, faint contact was larger, two-thirds a Battlestar's length, bristling with unfamiliar weaponry.

"Admiral Cain?" Nagala sent over.

"Yes sir?"

"I want you to give the opening speech, you know what to say, Admiral."

Cain's brain began sending off alarm bells even as she opened her mouth "Yes, Sir. Fisk, direct the transmission toward the largest of the new contacts."

* * *

_Bridge, CSC Iwo Jima, Near Earth, October 31, 3868_

The transmission began to come in loud and clear "This is Rear Admiral Helena Cain of the Battlestar Pegasus, representing the Colonial Fleet. We advise all those who unjustly rule Earth to power down your weapons and prepare to be boarded. We are here to reclaim our brothers and sisters of Earth into the fold of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol." The woman said from the holographic screen.

Hannah Shepard snorted "Mark that ship, do not fire anything other than EMP weaponry at it, the Cylons asked us to spare that ship since apparently Helena Cain was the one to help them get as far as our space." The necessary designation appeared on the particular Battlestar, one of the many 1.5-km ships out there, the 2.5-km ones seemed to be Warstars, and the smaller vessels were Destroyers and Missile Cruisers. It wouldn't be a problem wince the Colonials' missiles were fragile enough to be killed by Flak fire, the TMDs would only be reserved for the nukes. Once she'd opened a channel to the _Pegasus_, Hannah Shepard started her reply.

* * *

_Colonial Fleet, Beyond Luna Orbit, October 31, 3868_

"This is Division Commander Hannah Shepard. You are intruding upon the sovereign territory of the Coalition of Species, more specifically the United Earth Federation. The Cylon Refugee fleet is under our protection, negotiations are currently ongoing between the Coalition and the Cylon Refugees, any attack upon them will constitute an attack on us. Retreat, join the negotiations or be destroyed." She paused "Earth is humanity's homeworld, the Coalition of Species will not permit you attacking it. You have five minutes to make a reply."

Nagala didn't wait for Cain to send a reply "All ships forward, destroy those that would dare oppress our brothers and sisters!" Cain sighed, another fanatic, just like the damned commissar smiling smugly on HER bridge.

* * *

A/N: I don't like how EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Crossovers I've read where Cain is involved in the start of the war has her as an ice bitch, so I'm exploring a different Cain, with an altered back-story so she'll be softer and nicer. Also, I'm a stickler for happiness, or at least sort-of-happy endings (see Lucy), so yeah…

The reason I cast the Vatican somewhat negatively is the number of perverted priests or whatever popping up all over Europe. I don't have anything against any particular religion, but I don't support such massively organized religion or religions/cultures that violate human rights (for example, India has way too many women dying of "kitchen fires", so I don't support the dowry system). I feel that massively organized religion needs to be buried eventually, since faith is in the individual heart, there is no need for huge ceremonies or institutions based on faith. Almost all were eliminated after the United Earth Directorate fell to the Earth Empire, but religious faith still remained in the UEF, though to a far lesser degree than on Earth in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries. The Cybrans effectively gave up on religion and came to understand that sentient species were to forge their own path, without guidance from the outside. The Aeon, on the other hand, adopted the Way, essentially a doctrine of harmony and peace.

I will eventually explore Rhianne's rise to power, so don't ask me about what she meant in a review please. I've also established a good SupCom-type background for Miranda, so no Miranda Six (I think I went over her back-story in the Skyllian Blitz chapter in SupCom: Mass Effect). Also, I'm not sure whether or not I'll have William Gauge around, depends on if I can find an appropriate woman for him, he can be an old acquaintance of Ivan's who likes to irritate Ivan for laughs, oh I know, he can be the Prankster Dude! (If I include him)

Note that I will not necessarily reply to all suggestions or requests in reviews. Also, sorry for such long Author's Notes, it means that I'd like to cover questions I won't cover in the fic's near future, if ever.


	3. Hammerfest

A/N: If anyone thinks the Coalition seems too OP, please remember that the Colonials lack good electronics, good sensors, directed energy/plasma weapons, and most importantly Shields and Structural Fields. The Citadel fleet at least has the last three, and they have numbers. The Coalition is not aggressively trying to take over the galaxy because the memories of the Seraphim War and Infinite War are still fresh. However, they will encounter worthy/tough foes in time (space warfare only though), i.e. the Covenant, the Old Republic, etc.

Any questions about loose ends in Koprulu Sector as of Chapter 18 (i.e. The Old Confederate Adjutant) will eventually see themselves resolved, I haven't forgotten. Also, you notice SupCom: KS hasn't been marked as Complete yet? And likely won't be until Legacy of the Void is out (or when I start feeling as if I might die of old age, before then)?

* * *

Chapter 3: Hammerfest

_Colonial Fleet, Beyond Luna Orbit, October 31, 3868_

Cain's head snapped up as she stared at the woman whose face was on the screen "Wait, is that circuitry?" She gaped as the fleet began moving forward, the contacts ahead of them suddenly disappearing from DRADIS. It was rather obvious why Nagala had reacted so poorly to the woman's transmission.

"Damn toasters, seems they came up with something new." The commissar's voice grated on Cain's ears again, causing her to let out an irritate breath before resuming watching her DRADIS screen.

* * *

_Engagement Zone, Beyond Luna Orbit, October 31, 3868_

Hannah Shepard grinned gleefully as the Colonial fleet began to move forward, she had all the first wave of strikes planned out already. She started the ball rolling as the fleet enabled full stealth and went to full speed ahead, prepared to meet the onrushing Colonial horde head-on while the stealthed wings of Gemini and Corona (though these used passive stealth) Aerospace Superiority Fighters (or Air Superiority, same things) zipped by first, intent on engaging the thousands of Colonial Vipers.

The Warstar _Hercules_ was the first Colonial capital ship to be crippled, being punched clean through by not one, not two, but three Sonance Artillery rounds, the glowing munitions travelling at hundreds of kilometres per second at the relatively close range (more explosive, less speed, better damage after penetration but less penetrative power) they were fired at. The Zeus was next to take horrific damage as two Sonance Artillery shells plus two Heavy Oblivion Cannon shells blasted into its front, a total of 260 kilotons of TNT equivalent emptying into the hull in under a second (for the record, the Hiroshima explosion was a mere 15 kilotons) as the rounds struck in quick succession, punching a large hole in the front of the ship straight into the CIC. Neither ship even saw it coming as the midnight-black Coalition ships came in under full stealth.

Now with their two main flagships crippled, the Colonial Fleet was in a slight state of chaos until Cain reasserted herself as the new officer in charge. "All squadrons, eyeball your targets, DRADIS is useless, repeat, DRADIS IS USELESS! Prepare planetary bombardment missiles and fire them at that city we're detecting as soon as we come into range!" Helena shouted into her comms "When you get a target, transmit its coordinates to the other ships ASAP and focus-fire using all possible guns, it's the only way we can deal with their stealth."

On the other side of the battle, Hannah Shepard was enjoying herself and finding the enemy ships rather laughable, what sort of proper starship over 1.5 km length didn't have shields or structural fields? The energy readouts on the ships were also rather low for their bulk, only reading a simple fusion reactor, something like a Tier 2 Power Generator's output at best. There were also some other readings, but they weren't high enough for the strategic assessment Hannah saw in her mind to even take into account. The fighters were also laughably small compared to even Coalition T1 Air Scouts, and their weapons didn't even register on scans. The Geminis and Coronas would massacre them without her needing to be concerned, it wouldn't be an issue, so she turned her attention to coordinating the next group of capital strikes, dispersing them among the Battlestar groups to achieve maximum shrapnel damage, using the ships as large fragmentation grenades as the Oblivion Cannons let off another volley before they and the Sonance Artilleries, calibrated for speedier ammunition, fired again in unison, twenty seconds after their first firing and before the Colonials had even reached weapons range.

Hannah Shepard jumped her corvettes and frigates into various Battlestar groups, ordering them to open fire indiscriminately before jumping out again as soon as their Quantum Jump drives were charged, which took fifteen seconds when using weapons, ten if not, for all Coalition ships. The automated ships did as was told, emptying kilotons equivalent in munitions into Battlestars all around them, though not inflicting much damage against the thick armour except with the Light Oblivion Cannons of the Frigates, each tossing out 1.5 kilotons yield per strike. The Ravager Plasma Chainguns also carved deep trenches in the armour as the nimble Frigates strafed the lumbering capital ships and blew apart small escorts before they could react much.

On the bridge of the _Pegasus_, Helena Cain was dealing with panicked reports for various Battlestar groups of ships jumping into their formations and opening fire on them, inflicting horrific damage on the escorts but not causing much difficulty for the armour of the Battlestars, which had been designed to take the 25-kiloton nukes used for standard ship-to-ship warfare. The armour on the escorts though simply wasn't enough to stand up to whatever the glowing rounds and bolts were, which melted gaping craters in the armour belts, breaching compartments in the hulls of the smaller ships and causing hundreds of casualties across dozens of ships in mere moments. "Do not repeat do not attempt cross-fires unless at point-blank ranges, oh frak it…" The Battlestar groups were madly cross-firing on the enemy ships, the anti-ship coil-gun rounds pinging off rippling shield bubbles… SHIELD BUBBLES! "They've got energy shields!" Cain groaned "Fleet, begin charging up FTL drives, we need to retreat, quickly!"

"Admiral, I must remind you that we have not yet sustained too much in the way of losses, belay that order, with the power given to me by the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, I, Commissar Adar" The man was one of the frakking President's relatives "am taking over command of this fleet, focus fire on the enemy ships as they jump in among us, and continue the advance, Vipers, lead the way. We must liberate our brothers and sisters from the machines that have corrupted them!"

Hannah Shepard had intercepted the transmission and shook her head sadly, grinning, knowing the uselessness of Commissars for, well, anything. This would be even more of a cakewalk; at least the Cain woman had some sense, enough to know when a battle was lost due to sheer tech disadvantage. This Commissar needed to be punished for his stupidity, as well as this enemy government for their idiocy in placing political commissars on warships and giving them too much power. She took off the "Hold Fire" command on her Geminis and Coronas, ordering the Geminis to target medium-sized targets while the Coronas used their flak-like shells to splatter large numbers of smaller foes in volleys of fire.

Most of the pilots barely saw the fire incoming, and even fewer managed to get out of the way in time "Incoming hostiles, flak effect observed, scatter, SCATTER!" Zachary Adama, commander of the _Pegasus_'s CAG shouted into his comm. as he swerved out of the way of glowing rounds that disabled or destroyed more than half his twenty-fighter squadron (as opposed to the Coalition's 12-craft squadrons) with only three rounds. He saw his enemy, barely. It was a large white and green blur that sped by impossibly fast and pulled a move that would have splattered any pilot across the inside of the cockpit before the deadly hunt began again, black and red blurs streaking through the holes opened up in the colonial fighter screen toward the supporting Destroyers and Cruisers that were supposed to provide close fire support.

Hannah Shepard watched carefully as the Destroyers and Cruisers the Colonials had threw up a flak cloud. Sadly for the Colonials, it was in fact less damaging individually than even T1 AA Towers, well, other than the Flak effect and the sheer number of guns actually doing some damage. That meant it would require at least Restorers or Broadswords to punch through those without any losses, just to keep Colonial morale down, not that the Coalition couldn't afford throwing away tens of thousands of units. Her corvettes and frigates jumped out just as the heavy rounds of Battlestar primary batteries actually began to do some damage to the shields.

The net result was a massive case of friendly fire in the fleet as shells crossed the spaces the Coalition ships had once been boxed into and smashing into armour on the other sides. The result was that a large number of captains, though not significantly damaged, were screaming obscenities at one another over the comms. The Commissar didn't look like his ego had been shaken by the epic fail of his tactical decision, and ordered the fleet to push their engines and close the quarter light-second of distance between them and the enemy fleet's last known location. Cain's hand was twitching as she stood at the back of her bridge, ordered there by the damn son of a bitch, eager to draw her pistol and blow the bastard's brains out before he could do any more damage to the Colonial fleet with his idiocy.

Hannah Shepard was beginning to get annoyed with the persistence of these colonials and their retarded Commissar, so she resumed the bombardment fire of the Sonance Artilleries and Oblivion Cannons on the Battlestar groups. The fleet finally entered maximum engagement range of the other guns, and opened up with the weapons at the same time as the Colonials opened fire with their own weapons, both fleets pressing closer as they smashed away at one another, the Colonials outnumbering the Coalition fleet around six to one. The Battlestars' spinal guns and main batteries were actually doing appreciable amounts of damage, about as much as a Thunderhead-class T1 Frigate's gun (naval unit) much to Shepard's surprise, but it wasn't enough to make the Coalition fleet falter as they entered Ravager Plasma Chaingun range.

The weapons were perhaps the most feared weapon other than the Heavy Microwave or Phason Lasers to be mounted on Coalition ships, used for short-range slugfests to rain down volleys of hail-like plasma on the enemy, blasting armour to vapour and hulls to slag as they dug into the plating of the Colonials' ships. The return fire from the Battlestars' main batteries was hardly much of an issue, except for the occasional Corvette that was forced to use its manoeuvrability to maintain range and avoid damage once its shields were breached by massed missile and coil gun fire. The structural fields would hold out until it had gotten to a safe distance and was able to dodge rounds effectively.

"Unlock the tactical ship-to-ship nukes, it's time to up the ante, send Group Three to jump around these ships and into orbit, we've got to get some leverage over them… hold the Cylons at gunpoint. That should work." Adar ordered, across the fleet, missile bay doors began to unlock that hadn't been unlocked yet, exposing the nukes that would be used. "Tell Group Three to prepare planetary bombardment nukes and fire at any major settlements they detect when they enter low orbit."

"Madam, they're prepping low-yield nukes!" A sensor officer shouted in alarm aboard the Iwo Jima's bridge.

Shepard snorted "Alright, weapons free on the Loa Launchers! Let's see who's got better nukes, prioritize fleet TMD on those nukes, and divert some flak fire to neutralizing the conventional missiles. If they try anything…"

"Madam, energy build-up detected on rear ships in enemy formation. According to intercepted transmissions, they're preparing to head for Earth to deploy anti-planetary nukes!"

"Alert Earth Command, put all orbital defences to standby, make sure planet-side SMD silos are stocked." Shepard turned her attention back to the battle, where another Colonial Battlestar broke up from a string of secondary explosions caused by the Iwo Jima raking it over with all the ship's dozens of Ravagers focused on one line of fire, cutting through the thick armour and melting away at the internal hull with massed fire. "If they try anything… I feel sorry for them, almost." She queued orders for one of the Hunter Clutches under her control to execute if and when the Colonials jumped to Earth Orbit.

Lo and behold, after losing nearly a third of their ships and a quarter of their larger capital ships, a task force of the Colonials jumped to Earth Orbit instants before Shepard's force followed and opened fire. The task force of twenty Battlestars and a number of support ships acquired targets on the planet below and fired their highest-yield missiles before engaging the Hunter Clutch and charging their FTL drives. Using all their weapons, the Hunter Clutch emptied Proton Cannon, Quantum Cannon, Oblivion Cannon, Ravager Plasma Chaingun, Sonance Artillery, Loa Tactical Missile and Zealot SIM fire in torrents upon the enemy. Their TMDs picked off most of the nukes as they streaked down toward the planet, vaporizing the armoured missiles as they flew down with their fifty-megaton payloads. Only two Colonial Battlestars managed to jump away after charging up their FTL drives, taking five full minutes to do so. The rest of the ships were in pieces or vaporized.

Back at the original battle area, another Battlestar cracked open from being hit once too many by a heavy cruiser's Sonance Artillery, secondary explosions tearing the ship to scrap even as the Heavy Cruiser turned its attention to another. Two Light Cruisers were cooperating with a Destroyer to terrorize a group of Colonial Destroyers and Cruisers, pounding them with the Destroyer's heavier anti-shipping weapons and some of the guns of the Light Cruisers while any missiles or fighters they threw out were swatted from space by the Light Cruisers. Another pair of Destroyers was forcibly hacking apart three Colonial Missile Cruiser with their Dual Plasma Beams (same as Neptune-class Battlecruisers) and Medium Oblivion Cannons while the other capital ships mixed up with the main body of the Colonial Fleet in an all-out brawl, a brawl that the Colonials were losing, badly. Their only real chance of destroying a Coalition warship, even the Corvettes, with their coil guns, since missiles were nearly useless, was by encirclement. The only other option, ramming, was nullified by the fact that the Coalition warships kept their Quantum FTL drives ready for jumping out of the way.

Over half the Battlestars had been disabled or destroyed, and, while idly passing by them, some Coalition warships had ensured the two disabled Warstars were dead by vaporizing their engine cores. That meant firing their Dual Plasma Beams (specifically the Destroyers) through the cores to do their best to reduce unnecessary casualties. Shepard was all too familiar with what it felt like to lose a child; she wanted to keep that to a minimum if possible. The others were given a brief respite as the Coalition fleet backed up to allow the shields to recharge effectively, by turning them off and allowing the quantum standing waves to re-initiate at full strength. There was a reason after all why recharging an active shield was so much slower than recharging an inactive one.

While manoeuvring her Frigates to reduce damage taken to the automated ships, the nuclear missile paths and targets were highlighted on Shepard's display, and her eyes narrowed as she noted the one that was targeting Rome. Well, now it was just the Vatican, with the ETA just over two minutes. She remembered what had happened during the Seraphim Invasion…

The goddamned Combined Churches (all that remained of organized religion) had taken so long to evacuate through the Vatican's Quantum Gate and hogged it to such a degree that tens of thousands of people attempting to evacuate through it had been unable to and eventually fallen victim to the Seraphim Ahwassa fleet. She still remembered the footage of people screaming and hurling themselves at the walls around the Vatican, and the gates, while the shadows of Ahwassa-class bombers approached in the distance. That particular clip was ended by footage of a streaking ball of light, the Othe Tactical Bomb falling toward the crowd, which collectively screamed before the clip ended. Suffice it to say the Combined Churches were met with headhunting parties of angry civilians at nearly every turn thereafter for the entire duration of the Seraphim War, and had barely kept going to this day.

So, what she as current High Commander of Earth's defence, did was select the Vatican's Strategic Missile defences. The damned Church had lobbied for one, even though no civilians wanted to live near the bastards now. She selected it and toggled it to "Hold Fire", then frowned as the Vatican's nuke bunker self-destructed. "President Hall?" She tilted an eyebrow.

"Yeah, that was me, it was about time the bastards got what was coming to them. Fifty megaton nukes are easy to clean up after anyways." The man shrugged while the crowds outside Coalition HQ cheered at his decision.

Shepard turned her attention back to the battle, where Coalition Loa Tactical Missiles were swarming down more and more Colonial ships with their electron payloads and the fact that they were armoured enough to handle the flak screen. Even the occasional lucky Viper hit or heavier munition only caused them to split into the characteristic three-part warhead and still hit the target, albeit with reduced power. The Colonial nukes simply weren't making it through the Zapper screen, and their normal missiles were being redirected from the larger ships by Will-O-The-Wisp flares. The Coalition ships were simply too nimble for the clumsy Colonials to do much to them except by surrounding and pressing in, and Quantum FTL nullified THAT tactic. So the 3rd Hunter Squadron was slowly whittling down the Colonial fleet while they themselves took no losses. The Vipers the Colonials fielded were being utterly torn to shreds by the Coalition's aircraft, and even the few that survived barely registered any damage on the "weak" over-shields all Coalition aircraft sported (though this meant an additional expense added to the price tab during construction and a longer build time).

* * *

_Bridge, Colonial Battlestar Pegasus, October 31, 3868_

_Hard Contact plus Twenty-Two Minutes_

The _Pegasus_ had been disabled in what was possibly the most humiliating way possible, a puny ship, a tenth of their length (Coalition Corvette: 150m, Colonial Battlestar: 1500m), had dumped an odd device onto the Battlestar before the larger ship could evade effectively. When the device had gone off… the entire ship went dark, the reactors shut down, power systems malfunctioned, and backup power had to be manually rebooted, barely able to sustain minimal life support and short-range communications, but the mad Commissar was still barking out orders to the others ships based on sensor data they fed the deaf, blind and lame _Pegasus_. Cain had had enough of this madness as the engineers worked frantically to bring the ship back online, she drew one of her marines' rifles, the man giving her a thumbs-up, and levelled it at the frakker's back. "Commissar Adar, I must ask you to immediately cease and desist, and submit to the Marines on the Pegasus, you are under arrest."

The half-crazed idiot turned around "You dare arrest me? Do you know what the President will do to you?"

"That is not an issue here, the lives of my men are at stake, I won't let a frakking retard like you endanger them, now STAND DOWN!" The idiot went for his sidearm instead, causing Cain to empty her rifle's entire thirty-round clip into the man, the body fluttering about in the three seconds of fire as if jerked about by a mad puppeteer, the pistol the man had gone for flying away onto the deck some distance away. The man collapsed in a rapidly expanding pool of bloods, still twitching. Cain walked over to where the man's sidearm was, pointed it to the man's head, and fired off all ten bullets in quick succession. "Huh, never thought there was actually anything in that head of his, guess I was wrong, there was a whole crapload of bullshit." She snorted.

Then, she stepped into the mush that was where the man's brain had once been, the grey and red jelly squelching around her boot, and hit the comms just as long-distance comms came back on. "All ships, break engagement and prepare to jump out of system, any not able to do so, form up on the _Pegasus_, we'll buy our brothers and sisters some time. It was an honour to serve with you" She turned to her crew, ending the transmission "You've been the best crew, and I'm not just saying that, that I've ever served with, you understood me and supported me two years ago and still do today, I couldn't imagine a better crew even if the Gods themselves gave me another crew." Cain finished and looked down at her stained boot "By the way, if you don't mind, someone clean that pool of shit off the deck and throw it in the trash chute." The solemn atmosphere of the bridge was broken as the crew chuckled, returning to their duty stations as the guns began to work again.

* * *

_Colonial Fleet, Beyond Luna Orbit, October 31, 3868_

_Hard Contact plus Twenty-Seven Minutes_

With a series of flashes, three badly scarred Battlestars and four assorted Destroyers and Cruisers jumped out of the field of battle. "Soldiers, you fought well this day, but there is no hope for us, the greatest service we can do to the Colonies is to…" Cain paused "live to fight another day. I will take full responsibility for ordering this surrender." Her bridge crew gasped behind her as she made the transmission. They knew as well as she did that her career in the Colonial Fleet was effectively finished, they'd known her to be an ambitious woman, and they were almost having a hard time believing that she'd do this just for them. It was then that they realized she hadn't given up on reuniting with her Cylon lover, and the bridge rang in a chorus of "aw"-s and squeals while Cain facepalmed, it seemed her entire crew was made of closet romantics.

* * *

_Bridge, CSC Iwo Jima, Beyond Luna Orbit, October 31, 3868_

"I accept your surrender on the behalf of the Coalition of Species, your ships are to deactivate all weapons and prepare to evacuate. The shuttles are en route now to your docking bays. We will pick up all the escape pods from your fleet, the ones not yet destroyed in the crossfire. Any aggression will be met with force." The Coalition had not targeted escape pods, and Shepard had actively ensured the escape pods were marked as friendly so Friendly Fire didn't occur, while the Colonials' own flak screens had damaged or even destroyed a few of the lifeboats. She looked back on her displays in time to watch the rebuilt Vatican go up in a flash of light and let a grin make its way onto her face. "You know, the Colonials got hammered so badly today" and she'd been playing those old Command & Conquer games "I'll title this journal entry… Hammerfest."

* * *

All across the planet below, people celebrated the end of the now widely despised Combined Churches. The days of organized religion in the Coalition of Species were done, once and for all. Sure, people were still religious, but it was faith on an individual basis as opposed to large-scale operations, as it should have been. Shield domes, complete with air filtration fields, sprang up over cities in the Greek peninsula and the rest of Italy, while civilians, ready and waiting for the invaders in their Coalition Civilian Armour, rejoiced at the two birds killed with one stone. Engineers were already sweeping in from both ends of the peninsula and the western coast, filtering the air as they moved, while transports overhead performed similar duty at higher altitudes, In various areas near landed escape pods, small-scale firefights erupted between Coalition militia teams and Colonial Fleet crewmen, but the latter were quickly subdued with the far superior capabilities and strength of the Coalition civilians, without casualties on the Coalition side and without deaths on the Colonial side.

All the eleven thousand prisoners would be held in a complex constructed on the island of Britain, which had thus far not yet been re-settled. The entire POW facility was planned out beforehand, and constructed to the necessary scale in less time than it took to remove every Colonial Fleet crewmember from their ships and to subdue all the ones who'd dropped down to Earth. There would be one Commander tasked to establish a base and a solid perimeter (of wall blocks complemented by some T1 Point Defence guns) several kilometres away from the facility, and the Colonials would be treated like typical POWs in the Coalition of Species. That included residential buildings, "statues" of Mech Marines all over the place, in standby mode and cast over with a thin veneer of rock, and self-sustaining capability with putting the people to work in the agricultural facilities as well as leaving them mostly to their own devices. Cain would be put in charge of the facility, though of course, as expected, Spook Spy Planes were constantly circling far overhead, out of sight and hearing range of the Colonials.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, I really had a problem with the pedophile Church people that are popping up all over Europe. Besides, organized religion is not only absent in dystopias but utopias too, so, I got rid of it, besides, they were getting corrupt anyways, it was about time to clean house. Also, I hated bitchy Helena Cain so I made her reasonable and nice instead, also, the Lucy Cain thing helped establish her as less bitchy, right?

What I realized later upon looking at a table of yield vs. damage I drew up was that a Striker T1 Light Tank's gun, at 6 tons TNT equivalent in kinetic plus explosive energy, was alarming in its power. For example, that's equal to a three-gun salvo from a twentieth-century Iowa-class battleship, based on Wikipedia numbers and assuming a 1000 m/s shell with 1500 kg mass, 1200 kg of which was High Explosive, with explosive yield per mass 1.5 times that of TNT. In other words, I think I overpowered the Citadel and Geth hardware. Then again, they've had over a thousand years since canon ME so they were bound to have advanced a lot… right?

WorldWar: Supreme Balance will begin to be posted after I catch up to present time (in fic string) in ME: Supreme Redemption (shortly after John Shepard dies). I will decide when to let the Race fleet start approaching the Sol system. Also, as to why Hannah isn't more pissed over John dying, it will be explained when I get to John's funeral (slightly after present time but still before Race contact, so there).


	4. Betrayal Ocean

A/N: The Combined Churches don't exist in SupCom, in fact, I don't think organized religion survived to the 3800s, but I kept it around to hammer it, since I don't like the pedophile church people popping up all over the place these days.

For the record, I made all odd Cylons male and all evens female for easy remembering, and as another difference from the nBSG timeline.

* * *

Chapter 4: Betrayal Ocean

_Eight Light-Years from Earth, October 31, 3868_

A series of seven flashes announced the arrival of the scorched, pockmarked, deeply scarred Colonial Fleet remnant. They had been ground to scrap against an enemy they did not know and whose technology they could not conceive of. One hundred Battlestars of assorted classes, two hundred assorted Destroyers and Cruisers, and three hundred additional combat vessels, thrown into battle against what some claimed to be fifty enemy vessels, some one hundred and fifty (in reality, the number of ships in a single Hunter Squadron was 90). All that remained were three Battlestars and four assorted Destroyers and Cruisers. Frantic repairs were conducted, systems stabilized, and FTL coils recharged, these repairs took several days for the damaged ships, for not a single space-worthy fighter craft remained, so they couldn't call for supply ships. Luckily for them, all seven ships were, after a lot of ramshackle repair work, still in one piece, well, seven pieces, but same point.

* * *

_Fifty-Three Light-Years from Earth, November 15, 3868_

"New DRADIS contacts, patrol groups are headed to intercept."

"How many?" Captain William Adama asked, sitting up straight in his command chair, instantly on the alert. He had been put in command of this particular forward fleet outpost, the one at the end of the line, for his experience and tactical knowledge, though his lack of political connections made a promotion to Admiral at best unlikely for him, he didn't mind, but he was quite worried, his son, Zachary Adama, was with the fleet…

The sensor officer paused, and then frowned at the display "Seven."

The number was above the remaining Cylon ship count, yet so far below the Colonial Fleet sent that it wasn't funny. "Messenger ships?"

"Reading as three capital ships and four escorts… holy crap! It's three Battlestars and Four Destroyers and Cruisers…" The sensor officer gaped as the display updated.

Adama frowned "How did they come back so fast? The pacification of Earth was expected to require all the Marines on the ships several weeks at best…" His eyes grew round "We lost… status report on the ships!"

"Status report is… they want tugs, as many as we can spare, two of them have just lost FTL capability. No way can they repair them without extra parts from us."

"Frak, it is as I had thought… we've lost the battle… I need to know how and why we lost. Send out the tugs and get the ranking officers over here right now." Adama had learned over the years not to be over-optimistic about a mission, since it usually resulted in total mission failure. "We need to debrief them ASAP."

* * *

"We had no idea what weapons they used, the signatures were unlike anything we've ever known. We couldn't detect them and according to some of the crewmen near view ports and telescopes we couldn't even see them." One of the commanding officers, an XO since the CO of that particular ship had been put out of commission by exploding consoles, spread his hands helplessly "They kept on fading into and out of visibility like they could cloak or something, or at least the smaller ships did."

Adama frowned, pacing in front of the table behind which the seven nervous officers sat "That's far beyond our capabilities… Go on."

Another officer, a woman this time, spoke "Their weapons sometimes didn't penetrate our armour directly on the first hits, the glowing yellow munitions they used sometimes would make our plating disintegrate as if the intermolecular and metallic bonding was disrupted." Well it was disrupted, in the case of electron and proton munitions. "Their bluish bolts… those seemed to be plasma weaponry, and I'm pretty sure we saw their largest capital ship use some sort of laser to slash a Battlestar in half… oh, and let's not forget the ridiculous power of their weapons."

"Yeah, I saw some sort of beam weapon cut straight through a Battlestar's plating, completely ignoring the ablative properties." Another officer piped up, he had no idea he was talking about Plasma Accelerators and Dual Plasma Beams, though the latter would have slight difficulty in pulling off what he was describing. "Their fighters were something else… I saw a small group swarm and take down a Cruiser, completely ignoring the Flak we threw up." The man shivered "We didn't have a chance of even inflicting significant damage on them without using the big guns. Even those take a while to take down even one fighter."

The only loss suffered by the Coalition was three Gemini Fighters and a Restorer Gunship after the latter had taken multiple rounds from the Battlestars' main guns and it, along with the former, were caught near ground zero of a tactical nuclear missile detonation by the colonials, trying to slow down the swarming fighters that were flaking away their armour alarmingly fast. "In conclusion, the battle had been a one-sided slaughter from the start, we had no chance."

* * *

_Bridge, CSC Iwo Jima, High Orbit over Earth, November 15, 3868_

Hannah Shepard, listening to this point in the comm. bugs she'd planted and the viruses and hacks they'd put into the Colonials' systems, snorted "Yeah, and that was with only one of the five Hunter Squadrons in orbit engaging your fleet, and without much in the way of support." It was true, they'd only unleashed the aircraft attached to the docking clamps of the ships after all (and built more during the battle on the Escort Carrier in their Hunter Squadron, but that was a different matter altogether). "If we'd deployed even ONE Yolona Oss the battle would have been over before it began…" She went back to listening in, chuckling with the other women.

* * *

After a long debrief, it boiled down to this: "What should we do now?" One officer asked Adama, clearly scared shitless of this "Coalition of Species" that currently held Earth.

"We need to do repairs, focus on that for now, Saul, send a Raptor with the info back to the Colonies, they need to know…" His XO nodded and sent off the relevant commands as Adama turned back to the table behind which the seven officers sat "Make sure everything's packed up and all ships are ready to jump out at the slightest sign that the enemy fleet is coming for us. Understood?" The seven men and women nodded "Dismissed."

He turned toward his old friend once the seven had scurried out of the conference room "Saul, I fear the Colonies will never be the same again after this… Make sure we're ready to retreat as soon as the return message from the President comes through."

* * *

_Princess's Retreat, Blue Sky, November 15, 3868_

Rhianne, Rhiza, Dostya, and Shepard (the latter two in holographic form) shared a look before emitting assorted grunts, snorts, whistles and other noises of derision. If they wanted, they could hit the Colonials with more than their mass of cloaked and stealthed Corvettes before the Colonials could detect any sign of them, but right now they were feeling merciful. This Adama dude seemed decent anyways, at least the man knew when a battle was lost, or rather a war in this case, and knew to retreat.

"So, girls, when do you think Brackman's gonna realize he lost the bet he had on Ivan the moment he bet against him and Thalia?" Rhiza decided to ask Dostya, since she was most familiar with Brackman. They seemed to have collectively agreed that the Colonial issue wasn't worth giving attention to.

The brunette shrugged "I don't think he's going to realize until Ivan turns up on Thalia's arm with engagement rings on their fingers."

"Hey, girls, how are things going?" Ariel Williams had joined their little telecom girls' night out.

"Great, we're discussing when the hell Brackman's gonna realize he lost the bet on Ivan the moment he bet against him and Thalia Kael." Rhiza supplied helpfully.

"We decided the Colonial issue wasn't worth discussing, as utterly helpless as they are." Hannah piped up.

"Though perhaps we should talk about the Cylons…" Rhianne mused "Have they chosen a planet yet?"

Hannah nodded "Yep, they've chose the area known as… drum roll please? Betrayal Ocean…"

Ariel frowned at the announcement "Betrayal Ocean? That's a popular map for ACU Simulators… it's a real place?"

Hannah nodded "Yep, consisting of a circle of roughly symmetrical island chains, each with one very large island, a large island and a medium-sized island. In the middle is a large, high island. The ACU Simulator map changes the arcs somewhat so it's a more challenging match-up and shrinks it down to be more reasonable, but the area is in fact wholly circular, the remains of an ancient impact crater on the mostly watery planet. Thankfully it's tectonically stable, being located near the middle of the large plate it's on, much as Hawaii is stable on Earth. I'd say it's a decent choice for the Cylons, especially as there's very little other land on that planet… which is named after that area anyways."

"Huh, good, at least they didn't choose Debris or Frostmill Ruins." Rhiza spoke her mind while standing next to her old friend. Those areas did exist in reality, but they were a whole lot larger and far less symmetrical/balanced than the Simulator scenarios showed them to be. Hence, both areas had been grounds for back-and-forth trench warfare for decades on end on occasions, settling there wasn't the wisest thing if you don't want to stub your foot on a piece of wreckage every time you took a step. They were almost but not quite worse than Seton's Clutch, where again the simulator scenario was a lot smaller than reality for that just to make the matches manageable times instead of requiring combat stims even for simulations.

Human physiology was on par with Quarian and Asari in strength and such, and with Turians and Salarians, but their endurance in mind was greater than that of typical Turians and their ability to go without sleep was right up there with Quarians and Asari. Still, some of the match-ups at Frostmill Ruins during the wars required Commanders to operate on five-day cycles with combat stims for many, many cycles. The longest continuous battle on record was a twenty-three year fight over Debris, with none of the sides managing to establish a match ender experimental.

"I agree… that would have been rather irritating for the Cylons, since our more convenient and plentiful reclamation devices don't handle scrap unless it's been gathered together." Rhianne nodded to her friend "And to get all the destroyed units out of the ground would required coordinated mass extractor action or literally scraping the surfaces of those areas clean." Betrayal Ocean, on the other hand, though a popular scenario in simulators, was NOT a popular battleground, being inside Cybran Space and staying that way throughout the Infinite War, only seeing the occasional battle every century or so and being meticulously cleaned after each slugfest. The only reason it bore that name was because the surveyors had a sense of humour and felt betrayed at such a hospitable planet having such low land area.

"And, needless to say, they don't have quite the equipment to gather up that much junk." Ariel finished for her when she paused, nodding respectfully toward her Princess.

"And of course we're not going to do those little things for them, we've done enough I say." Hannah grinned viciously before Dostya cleared her throat.

"You turned that sentence into one with too many ands, also, you can't start a sentence with And, Hannah." The Elite Commander received a glare from her fellow Cybran and friend, grinning in response.

"Grammar Nazi…" Hannah muttered before the conversation turned to other, more useful topics, such as how wonderful it was that the Cylons had not chosen Paradise for their new home. The many islands were home to numerous resorts, spas and of course scantily clad tourists, so it was a relief that the Cylons had not requested the area, though Hall had given the planet's senator the evil eye for proposing the idea in the first place. The President of the UEF liked it too much to let it go to someone else so easily.

Then the conversation got more serious, such as, once again, the subject of what to do if the Migrant Fleet ever entered Coalition Space. Since the Quarians wore environmental suits, there was talk of simple forking over an area such as Snoey Triangle, Winter Duel, White Fire, Frostmill Ruins or Arctic Refuge. The Coalition had pulled back the populations of the more hostile worlds after the Seraphim War cut the human population to barely half of what it had been at the end of the Infinite War. The result was that the cleanest, most sterile, Quarian-friendly environments, where suit breaches didn't mean death by infection, were all ice balls that had been freed up.

"Personally, I think if it comes to that, we should just stick them with a typical temperate planet like The Wilderness." Dostya grumbled.

Rhiza frowned "Why? You don't like the Quarians? You know the description of The Wilderness is 'Its forests echo with the crash of weapons fire and the waterways are clogged with the hulls of broken warships', right?"

"I agree with Rhiza, it would be just plain mean to give the Quarians a planet with destroyed warships sticking out of the waters everywhere, they're probably not that familiar with watercraft anymore in the first place, unlike us." Rhianne said, without the usual sagely act she adopted in public "Also, if they ram a broken Atlantis-class aircraft carrier's remaining mass, after the core overload when it was destroyed burned out all the critical tech, I doubt their boat plating can take it. Nothing in the galaxy we've seen so far can match up to UEF plating, true, we other factions might have slightly more dense stuff, but the UEF are so good at applying sheer thickness that that makes no difference… and their internal systems are a bit more in-built…"

"Right, I was gonna ask when you'd mention the downed CZARs sticking out of the water like the setting sun all over the place." Ariel commented dryly, since she'd personally contributed to at least three of said downed CZARs, one on her side and two Order units.

"Ah yes, but as I was saying, if they hit those things, it's their own funeral… and their population is low enough they can't afford it anyways." Rhianne finished "For common decency, we need to find a way to help the Quarians. They don't trust us, and they especially don't trust Cybrans, but they need help and it would be against the Way to not give any."

"Hmm… I propose we send James with a Hunter Clutch to provide them with some aid." Hannah Shepard finally talked again after seemingly mentally debating with herself over the issue.

"You CANNOT be serious!" Ariel was gaping, an atypical act for a Grand Crusader, then again, it was an atypical act for a mother still grieving the loss of one of her sons to be willing to send the other out on a long-term mission so casually. "They don't trust Cybrans, or have you not been noticing the attitude your people get whenever they even go near Citadel Races or Quarians?"

"Uh, no, it's just that I almost saw one particular Quarian almost drooling over James at that party we had at Dostya's home in August, and he's been hopping around the Iwo Jima like a Geth Hopper on over-clock every time she contacts him. They've kept up a correspondence by e-mail and I'm hoping to get him away from his usual moody state by putting them closer to each other so they can keep up the comms and his mood. It's always Tali this and Tali that whenever he has spare time that I've assigned him to watch the stuff in the cargo bay to keep him from annoying me."

"Men… they're so easy to distract, pathetic…" Rhiza facepalmed and shook her head in irritation.

Hannah crossed her arms "Well I want my boy to be happy, and if letting him help keep this girl he's interested in right now safe, well relatively so, keeps him happy, I'm willing to let him go with that, as long as it's not too perverted or gets in the way of doing what's right. We WERE talking about helping the Quarians out, remember? I hear there have been a number of pirate attacks on the Migrant Fleet in recent years, let's start by helping them with that."

It took a while for the details to be hammered out, but all the women thought it was a good idea… now all that remained was to convince those morons… I mean men. That was surprisingly easy, and so, the necessary orders went out. The conversation between all the leaders went back to business with immature humour and sarcasm liberally sprinkled in. The next issue: new ship classes needed to deal with the Reapers effectively and to counter the newest lines of dreadnoughts the Council were building if it came down to it, especially the refit the Destiny Ascension was getting. That ship could have stood up to two Coalition Battlecruisers, and now that they were overhauling it to be stronger, faster and more powerful, it could become a real threat to even a Ship Gantry.

* * *

_Betrayal Ocean, November 17, 3868_

Caprica Six stepped off the ship and breathed deeply in satisfaction at the scent of the sea. This planet had an amazingly Earth-like biosphere, according to the records the Cylons were allowed access to. It even had many similar fishes and small animals to Earth, as a surprisingly large number of planets in the galaxy seemed to have. She tucked a lock of her blonde hair behind her ears as she looked toward the sky and threw out her arms grandly, inhaling deeply and arching her back, letting out a sigh of contentment.

"Would you mind not marvelling so much? There are others in the shuttle behind you, you know…" Boomer did the opposite of booming, e.g. hissing, in her ear.

"Oh, sorry Boomer" Caprica stepped off the boarding ramp, allowing Boomer to get off "Wait, you said there ARE others, where are they?" Caprica peered into the suspiciously empty cargo bay of the Heavy Raider.

"They got off already, by ducking under your arms; I just hung around to remind you to get out and enjoy, hey look, there's a centurion… whoa his new body is hot…" Boomer fanned herself theatrically as she pointed at what looked to be a Cybran man except with a slight metallic sheen to his skin. "Ooh, look, I think those two centurions over there look really cute together." All the remaining centurions had decided to try to experience life to the fullest, those that hadn't already chosen to decant during their voyage. Two of them, one in a male body, self-designed and constructed from Cybran bio-synthetic fusion materials, one in a female body, also custom-designed by the AI itself, were animatedly chatting over some drinks at a bar the small Coalition science camp had set up.

"Huh, well I wish them all the best." Caprica said, looking over the jubilant but rather pitifully small crowd that was all that remained of the Cylon civilization. The Coalition science team that would be there to help them settle in to their new home and the reality of the big wide galaxy had set up a single UEF-style, blocky, sturdy Residential Building for the Cylons, it was more than enough. They'd followed the Coalition's typical construction doctrine i.e. putting up either medium-sized apartment blocks or towering skyscrapers that stretch over a kilometre up, depending on the expected population.

"Hey Caprica! The Coalition guys say that we three need to talk to them, something's come up." Gina Six had a bounce to her step she couldn't remember having since her relationship with Helena Cain ended. She shuddered as she remembered Helena's grey eyes staring helplessly at her as she screamed for the other woman to help, devolving into simple screaming and then mere gasping breaths as they tortured her for days, violating her old body in every possible way until finally her superior physiology couldn't take it anymore and failed. She remembered how Helena had been flanked by two Colonial Marines who watched her for any reactions to Gina's pain, and their approving nod at the regret that conveyed itself clearly in Cain's eyes. Gina's walk suddenly lost its bounce after the memory came unbidden into her head and she blinked back tears, setting her jaw and pushing the memory back into the depths of her mind.

"Alright, let's see what they want us for…" Caprica murmured as the three began walking, her and Boomer stripping off their shoes to feel the sand shifting between their toes, sighing in pleasure as they walked across the beach. They walked past a number of ex-Centurions testing their new reach and flexibility in a game of beach volleyball, and of course Caprica got hit in the head by said volleyball. "Wow, it's typical of these things to hit me instead of anyone else." She grumbled, rubbing the side of her head in irritation after she threw the ball back to the apologizing ex-Centurions with a chuckle.

Boomer pointed "Oh, look, there's the truck they asked us to meet at." Said truck was the size of a large house, and clad in the black plating typical of Cybran Nation designs.

The three Cylon women walked over "Hello, what was it you called us over for?"

"Someone's been asking after you…" The man waiting for them, a man by the name of Kaidan Alenko, said overdramatically. The woman, Ashley Williams, stayed silent but had a humorous twinkle in her eyes. "Or more specifically, a particular one of you… Gina Six, I believe?" His eyes settled on Gina, who felt suddenly nervous.

"That's me."

Kaidan nodded "One Rear Admiral Helena Cain has been asking us if you'd survived the voyage, we told her yes, and that you're alright. She asked to see you, and we're here to ask if you want to meet her."

"You don't have to agree if you don't want to." Ashley supplied "She's technically a prisoner of war so she's under our jurisdiction."

"I think… I think it would be a good idea if we talked." Gina said after a long silence, the other two Cylons nodded mutely, they all knew perfectly well that multiple times, Cain had let them get away and saved their collective asses.

"Good, she's in the truck, just head on in. There will be an armoured glass barrier between you initially, if things go well… we'll take away the barrier and give you some privacy." Ashley winked "I'm looking forward to some privacy with my boyfriend here, been a while since I've gone on any sort of vacation on a beach… and Betrayal Ocean has a lot of beaches"

"A roll in the sand, huh?" Alenko's eyes twinkled as the Cylons entered the truck if only to avoid being awkward intruders to this moment between the two Marines. "They say it's supposedly nice but can get really, really painful if you let sand get into anything."

"I brought a very large beach towel and a sheet, silly."

"Oh… right."

* * *

"Gina…" Helena Cain breathed, standing up from the plush chair she'd been sitting on, on one side of the comfortable room, when the Cylon came in. She was as beautiful as Cain remembered her to be, moving with the same elegance and grace she had before she disappeared from Helena's life.

"Helena." Gina nodded curtly.

"How have you been?" Helena realized she'd made a mistake. Obviously, after two years as a refugee constantly running from her fleet, Gina would not have been exactly great.

"I should be asking you that." Gina said coolly "You know perfectly well how I've been over the last two years." She began to feel her control slipping away as she remembered "I remember how you looked at me before I got resurrected… you had so much regret in your eyes… I could feel the shame rolling off you in waves, Helena!" She couldn't hold back the next words, even though she knew them to be untrue "You regretted being involved with me, you were ashamed of them finding out you ever became close with a Cylon. I remember how I just gave up after you watched me coldly for hours as they tortured me. I tuned out the physical pain, Helena, but the scars you left me with your eyes? That was what made me stop fighting to stay alive, to keep my body going. That was why I gave up and died! You took my life once already, what else do you want?" Gina turned her back on Cain with a huff, sniffling and wiping way her tears. She knew what she said wasn't true, since she'd also detected the pain in the woman's eyes when the end was near, but for some reason part of her insisted on lashing Cain with words in retribution for standing passively by and letting her die like that.

Cain fixed her eyes on the other woman's head "My only regret was not grabbing the gun off one of the Marines watching me, shooting him and the other one, then mowing down the scientists who were hurting you!" She stated, eyes blazing "And my only shame was not being able to save you or, toward the end, at least give you some mercy…"

Gina's eyes narrowed dangerously and the tendons in her neck became tense and visible as she whirled around, Boomer and Caprica each put a calming hand on her shoulders, still standing mutely and unnoticed by either of the women in the conversation "Mercy, huh? I'm not stupid, or I hope I'm not stupid, though I wasn't sure what I was thinking actually following the Collective's orders and seducing you…" She became quiet all of a sudden "and falling for you…"

"Gina, I can't change the past, I was scared… I was scared of dying if I tried to help you… and you told me, ordered me, to stay alive, to keep myself alive if at all possible, if they ever found out about you." By this time, Caprica and Boomer had decided to give them some privacy and left to join the group of Cylons and Coalition members, Human and Seraphim near the ice cream bar, the Drell were staying back, since they did NOT like cold things very much.

"I remember what I said, Helena, you don't need to remind me…" She had told Helena about resurrection and how if things came down to it, she only needed to keep herself alive for them to at least have a chance to be together again. True, it was one of those sweet nothings mumbled in each other's ears in the happy afterglow of lovemaking, but still, she had ordered in an absolutely serious voice for her partner to keep herself alive first and foremost.

"I'm sorry, Gina, I think… I think I should go." Helena hung her head, blinking back tears.

"No, Helena," Gina held up a hand and Cain's head snapped up hopefully "you've done more than enough, I remember you letting us off at least once per month, all of us, you've saved me more than enough times to have made up for it. Let's… let's just start over, alright?"

Helena stepped forward and wrapped Gina up in a tight embrace the other woman returned "I don't deserve to have someone like you, Gina, I really don't, I'm not worthy…" She mumbled into the crook of Gina's neck, inhaling deeply the familiar scent of Gina Six.

"Worthy or not, you're still the woman I fell in love with, Helena, you're stuck with me."

Helena pulled back slightly "You do realize that's more of a cause for celebration than the nightmare you make it sound like."

Gina didn't think, didn't analyze, she simply followed her instincts, or at least the instincts her body had, and crashed her lips into the other woman's, pulling Helena's body tight to her own, letting out a small sigh as she felt the other woman's curves against her own. She didn't bother wondering why the promised armoured glass between them wasn't there.

* * *

"You gotta wonder what they're up to in there…" Ashley Williams leaned casually against the side of the truck, keeping an eye on the bio-sign monitors she'd put in the armoured vehicle, both Cain and Gina were registering heightened heart rate, but neither registered any sort of injury, so either they were sparring, or nobody outside really wanted to walk in on them.

"They're probably expressing their love for one another, like we do at every opportunity to do so." Kaidan teased playfully, letting his eyes trace his girlfriend's figure appreciatively, since Aeon and Seraphim armours were a lot more expressive than UEF or Cybran Armours.

Ashley suddenly regretted having chosen Aeon Heavy Armour, which like all Aeon and Seraphim armours (and light armours of the other faction design lines) was generally favoured by women since it didn't make them look completely ugly. "Kaidan!" She hissed "Not here! Wait until we're off-duty at least!"

"Why should I get ordered around by YOU, Operations Chief?"

"Oh yeah? Well as your girlfriend I am formally declaring that we will not be having sex on a beach towel for the remainder of this assignment, Lieutenant Commander."

There was a long silence "…Ash?"

"What is it, Kaidan?" Ashley was watching the waves lapping at the shore longingly, mourning her idle threat and the fact that Aeon women didn't back down so easily from what they said.

"Did you mean that?"

Ash rolled her eyes at his whining tone and turned to glare down her tall dark and handsome_… don't go there Ash… ooh, while you're thinking about his positive qualities, how about his eagerness to learn what you like and his size… shut up brain…_ boyfriend "What do you think?" Kaidan cringed at the icy tone of voice Ashley was using, and she abruptly felt sorry for him, since she was mostly annoyed at herself for digging herself into this rut.

Boomer rolled her eyes at their banter just before her brain caught onto something "Wait, you two are in a relationship, you're working together, and you're DIFFERENT RANKS?" She gaped, and then quickly swallowed the ice cream in her mouth before it could fall out.

Ashley turned and shrugged "Yeah… oh, the society you're familiar with… the Colonials… right, you still don't approve of 'fraternization' much, right, I remember now." She frowned for a moment before continuing "Anyways, flings are strongly discouraged in the Coalition and there are actually regs against those who go around too much, but stable, long-term relationships are actually encouraged because it's better for unit cohesion. Our ships can be quite lonely places, you know, since we have small crews." She shrugged "Though I'd say it's mainly thanks to regs that I've gotten my man here."

Kaidan jumped about a foot straight up in the air when Ashley pinched his butt playfully, yelping in surprise at the sudden contact since unlike Ash he wasn't wearing his armour. Well, the gloves and power pack, yes, to keep shields and weapons up, but he kept his bottom half in shorts for the occasion, unsurprising since, contrary to doctrine, the civilian personnel on the mission were not suited up in sealed Coalition Civilian Armour. Apparently, this mission was classed as casual and therefore this was permitted. Ashley had insisted he wear this, though she still told him that if he got shot in the balls there would be hell to pay for him letting himself get shot. "You made me wear this simply so that you could do this, didn't you?" He glared accusingly while Ashley grinned with lidded eyes.

"Of course, what did you think? I wasn't going to shoot you in the ass, you know, it's far too fine of an ass for me to ruin like that." She slapped one of Kaidan's cheeks rather hard, which meant Kaidan held his SMG across his bum to shield it from further abuse and shuffled away from his fully-armoured (minus helmet) girlfriend a little, since it was impossible for him to pinch her back.

"Anyways, guys, can you save it for later? When we're not in an extremely serious situation?"

Ashley gaped "You call THIS" She waved an arm at what might as well be a beach resort, including breakwaters and tsunami protection further out, and narrowed one eye, twitching it slightly in overdramatic fashion "a serious situation? Well okay so maybe we're going to start the actual settling in process in about a week further inland." She pointed up the plateaus that dominated the islands. The islands were naturally protected from major tsunamis by a loose ring of circular shallows and coral reefs dispersed roughly 1100 to 2700 km away from the centre of the island ring. These were only high enough to dispel a major tsunami's power but not enough to prevent warships, even Atlantis Carriers or Tempests, when submerged, from passing. The hypothesis was that there had been a chain of impact events in the area, probably from a broken-up comet much as Shoemaker-Levy 9 had crashed into Jupiter in July 1994. The hypothesis concluded that the collision body, two hundred million years ago, was broken up by crashing into another object already in orbit, probably a small orbiting asteroid, and resulted in a shotgun-like pattern around the area. A later, much larger bolide created a massive impact on the shallow sea and probably boiled away a significant portion of the ocean where it impacted before blowing the area into a massive impact crater. It threw up ejecta in all directions from the nearly vertical impact and thus created the island chain around its perimeter, plus the large central island whose peak had been worn down somewhat by weathering and war. It was on the inner side of one of the larger islands around the outside that the group now stood (A/N: think player start locations in Betrayal Ocean, the right-side one on the southern island chain i.e. player 1.)

"Er…"

"Exactly, and have you noticed the amount of work that's actually getting done, even by the Centurions?" Ashley got a collective "ahem" from the group of newly-embodied men and women playing beach volleyball as they briefly paused their game "Well, ex-Centurions" there were hums of approval.

Boomer still couldn't find quite the relevant words "Uh…"

"Boomer means no." Caprica said snidely, grinning innocently when her compatriot gave her an evil glare.

"I was going to ask a question." Boomer put her foot down.

"What did you want to ask?" Kaidan said, still keeping his SMG held firmly across his rear.

"Didn't you say earlier that there would be armoured glass between them? How could they be 'expressing their love' if there's armoured glass in between?" the Eight finished, blinking and waiting for a response.

Ashley stepped forward a bit "We lied, there was no armoured glass, but there were safety features to keep you guys safe, don't worry, they're not doing anything particularly bad to each other."

After a few moments and finishing their ice cream, Boomer asked "Well what do we do now?"

Caprica rolled her eyes "We wait."

"Oh, that sounds like…"

Ashley entered the conversation as she handed the two Cylon women beach towels and sunscreen "A rather simplistic plan?"

"Yeah… thanks for the gear… and thank you again for allowing us to settle here."

Ashley waved it off "Don't mention it, it's the least we can do for you after what you've been through."

* * *

A/N: I know I pretty much directly transcribed, with some modifications such as Liara's power levels and kill counts, ME: Redemption books 1 and 2 for Mass Effect: Supreme Redemption Chapter 5, but did you guys have to give me ZERO reviews?

Chapter 6 introduces some major new elements, but I'm not posting it until Chapter 5 has a few reviews.


	5. Adar's Crappy Week

A/N: Oftentimes, neither the people at the top nor the people near the bottom of the command chain are particularly bad, but it's the second-highest in the chain you need to watch for.

* * *

Chapter 5: Adar's Crappy Week

_Caprica, December 3, 3868_

"Sir, sir!" The alarmed secretary called, trembling in fear at the expected reaction from President Adar at the horrific news that had just arrived from the Fleet. The President was generally a nice, friendly, reasonable man, but on his bad days…

"What is it? I'm rather busy today." Richard Adar growled irritably, his day had been truly horrible so far, his wife had just decided on taking a two-week-long vacation with the kids, without even asking him if he wanted to come with them. Her words when he confronted her about it were specifically "I think the kids need a break away from the big city life, and I didn't think it was right to take you away from the job when there's such a critical moment in our history."

Adar had pleaded with her in response "Honey, you know as well as I do that the estimated response time from the Fleet on the mission is in a month…" That had been two days ago, right before they left with the luggage, escorted by a bunch of secret service agents as he watched her and the kids from their house's armoured glass windows, before realizing he had slopped his coffee all over himself with shaking hands. Of course, he had to get a quick shower before the first conference and force his face into his negotiation face. and when his secretary had asked after his health, he had snapped out the problem to the young man, then cautioned the man to ensure he never took such a high position his wife didn't feel like he had time for vacations with her. He knew perfectly well the man would never listen, but he said it anyways.

"Sir, we have a message back from the fleet…"

Adar's eyes snapped wide open "What is it? How did the attack go? Are the toasters gone? What's the Senate's word on this? How's Helena doing?" Helena Cain was an old friend of his from years ago, but unlike many of his other old friends she shared his dislike for the Colonial Senate's recent changes, since the governing body was getting more and more overzealous, it made him nervous. It was all too likely that they, and the growing portion of the Admirals that were based on religious and political reliability with them, would get the Colonies into a war they couldn't afford or couldn't win.

"We… seven ships, out of six hundred, made it back to the staging point. Adama reports that only two of them can be re-commissioned without a full space dock for repairs."

Adar buried his face in his hands and groaned "Oh frak… my nightmare's come true… I can just hear it now… we're at war again…" Against an enemy they didn't know yet, an enemy the Colonies probably could not afford a war with. It was, truly, a crappy week.

* * *

_Senate Building, Caprica, December 7, 3868_

The guys at the Fleet had finally called in the necessary analysts and hashed out their thoughts enough to ask the President for permission to tell the Senate, since they weren't idiots and this was a very serious matter that had to be considered before it could be released.

"QUIET IN THE SENATE!" Adar had amped the speakers to maximum in the Senate building, and was bellowing at the top of his lungs. That failed. "SHUT THE FRAK UP!" He screeched, that shut them up alright, since they knew very well the President rarely employed foul language. "Alright, guys, now we need to decide exactly what we have to do about this… Admiral Jordan and Doctor Gaius Baltar are here to provide their analyses. I ask you to listen to them and stay silent until they are finished speaking."

Baltar came up first "The technology on the ships that met us was far beyond anything we even dreamed of. The weapons signatures were different from anything we'd ever seem, and whenever one of their weapons hit us we'd experience massive Electromagnetic Pulse damage on every hit, if we had Cylon-level electronics a few shells could have crippled us. They had directed energy weaponry as well! And their weapons would often melt their way through our armour, so I came to the conclusion that they were successfully using plasma in ship-to-ship warfare. They were also using energy shielding, a technology we have long dismissed as impossible on ships." There were gasps from the crowd. "There is no possible way we can win in a straight-up match. Thankfully, the enemy fleet did not appear too huge "

"Impossible!" Someone from the Senate yelled.

"I'm only giving my analysis, we cannot win against such an enemy unless in overwhelming numbers." Baltar shrugged. "I'm turning it over to Admiral Jordan now."

The man was one of the few black flag officers in the Fleet, since unlike Adar's personal opinions most of the Senate was still, to put it politely, quite racist. "My analysis is that from the observed behaviour of the enemy ships, they are able to employ tactical cloaking and extremely powerful sensor stealth. We were running at maximum DRADIS and we could barely pick up their largest vessel, around one kilometre long, until it literally made itself as big a target as possible and started throwing off radio waves to tell us where it was. We cannot possibly hit an enemy we cannot see, though from my observations of the recordings, they are willing to talk before fighting, we should thank the Gods for small blessings. Their weapons completely outdo ours to a ridiculous extent. Their FLAK did more damage than Battlestar Secondary Batteries and Destroyer or Cruiser guns! Our heaviest gun batteries, the coil guns mounted on our Battlestars, barely made a dent in their shields when firing at point-blank range. Their FTL system is far in advance of ours, and far more accurate, recharging in moments while our own take minutes to spin up. Whenever we surrounded them, they would jump out and bombard us from range, which for them is far larger than for us. In conclusion, we have the disadvantage in everything that matters in warfare, firepower, range, protection including stealth, and mobility. We cannot stand against them with our present technology."

"What about numbers?" Someone from the Senate yelled "Surely the Colonial Fleet can defeat fifty of these ships! After all, we only sent a tenth of the fleet!"

Adar watched in satisfaction as Jordan's eyes hardened in response to the Senate's idiocy "We cannot defeat an enemy we cannot detect or even SEE! We have no clue what the number of ships in orbit around Earth is, and I am not about to risk the security of the Colonies on a gambit! We need to upgrade our technology, and we do NOT need to go to war with this 'Coalition of Species' right now, if they are as powerful as they seem, we cannot AFFORD a war with them! We need to pull back our forces and focus on spending money on research and development, not another war!"

Sadly, despite Adar and his Cabinet's support, Admiral Jordan was ignored by the Senate, and the meeting concluded with an order for Adama to hold position and wait for reinforcements. It was decided, much to Adar's dismay, to kick the Colonies into a wartime footing and begin mass production of Warstars to replace Battlestars as the main-line ships of the Fleet.

After the disastrous meeting, Jordan, Baltar, Adar's Cabinet, and Adar himself were meeting in the Cabinet Office, attached to Adar's office. "We need to find a way to convince the Senate that we cannot possibly win." Greg Jordan punched his palm, mouth squeezed into a thin line.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Education Minister Laura asked sarcastically, crossing her arms over her rather ample chest.

"I don't know, maybe pull martial law on them if we have to, but we can't afford letting the Colonies get into this war, the enemy we are going to be fighting is far, FAR too strong for us to pull through." Jordan said intensely.

Gaius Baltar had a similar frown on his face "Greg, I think they need a wake-up call, so let's send them all out as commanders of the ships, that'll teach them, by getting rid of all those zealots… don't get me wrong, I believe in the gods and all, but I highly doubt the gods appreciate overzealous psychopaths"

"I agree with you, hell, I'm the RELIGIOUS MINISTER and I agree with you!"

"Well we need to talk about what to do to stop the damned Senators…"

The end result of the meeting was the conclusion that they'd just send all the Senators with the fleet because it was their idea in the first place. Suffice it to say that they got some good laughs out of the idea before settling down upon realizing the fate of the Colonies was completely out of their hands.

* * *

_All in all,_ Richard Adar thought, _today has been one of the crappier days I've had since I got married, and this week definitely takes the cake for the worst week of my life._ He sighed as he read through more reports with the rest of the Cabinet, while discussing various issues. Laura was again pushing for lowering the amount of time dedicated to religion in schools.

The Religious Minister was, unsurprisingly, the first to object, but he did it in an unexpected way "Uh, hello, if our motion is shot down by a seventy percent pus majority, remember that we'll need a new round of elections, and the Colonies can't afford a government as zealous as the Senate right now to be in power at the top. We'd end up splattering ourselves against this new enemy within ten years if we're not careful!"

"Within ten years if we reduce religious focus we won't have the problem of eager youth going to war for those idiots!"

"You do remember that even though we have voluntary service right now, we will end up having conscription and then it won't be a matter of if you want to fight for the idiots or not!" The Religious Minister, Damon Tools, waved his arms about "I pay proper respect to them, but the Gods do not favour overzealous attitudes!"

"Yeah, and the problem will persist if we do not change things now! I'm not asking for a big reduction, only cutting it from seventy-five to sixty minutes."

"That's twenty percent, a huge amount, we can't think of the future right now, Roslin! We need to consider the present and make sure the Colonies survive the next couple years first! If your motion gets our butts ousted from power, I doubt the Colonies would even survive the next couple months against this Coalition of Species!"

"It's fifteen damned minutes, and anyways it's clearly said in the annals of our history that worship of the Gods was originally only performed at home and in temples. We didn't have it in schools until the Colonies were all established and united under one government!"

"The Senators won't see it that way, Roslin and you know that perfectly well, are you TRYING to ensure the Colonies get destroyed by the Senate because we weren't there to stop them when things got out of hand?"

"ENOUGH, BOTH OF YOU!" Adar had brought his fist down. "Laura, I appreciate your efforts but with the growing zeal of the Senate I'm afraid that's not an option at present, though with their massive egos I'm sure we can get rid of the worst ones by stationing them on ships. Damon, I get where you're coming from, he's right, men and women of the Colonies, we need to be there to try to curb the Senate's madness when they get in over their heads."

The group, all nodding mutely in agreement, dispersed after another hour of discussion about other things. Once they'd finished up, Richard Adar returned to an empty house (other than the Secret Service agents protecting it and him, and loyal to him and him alone) and changed into his at-home clothes before laying back on the sofa, propping his legs up on the other armrest and rubbing his eyes. "Ah… so much shit to cut through, damned Senate frakkers want a war, well, I'll let them have a war… and they can be on the front lines if they so wish it." He set his jaw before getting back up and heading for the bathroom to take a shower before going to bed, hopefully, tomorrow would bring the start of a less crappy week, though considering his wife of twenty years was still absent, the prospects weren't exactly looking up for that.

* * *

_Sanctuary, December 7, 3868_

President Ratheen, re-elected after three terms of others being in office, was contemplating the human phrase of "laughing one's ass off" at the moment as the bugs they'd planted everywhere in the Colonies picked up all the relevant information extremely quickly. These people, with their puny twelve colonies, wanted a WAR? The Seraphim Republics had claim to over 100 habitable planets, though only Sanctuary was inhabited by large numbers of Seraphim due to the puny population of the original Separatist Fleet. The Aeon, Cybrans and UEF could each lay claim to around a thousand planets. The United Nations of Drell, the only Minor Faction of the Coalition so far, had only 15 habitable planets to their credit, but considering their current tech level could easily be a match for the Colonials and quash them without breaking a sweat.

"Uh, Ratheen, what are you doing?" Hall asked from the holograms where the four leaders were conferring, since this issue was very distant from Drell space and not a huge issue, it was decided Macune would stay out of it.

Brackman started sagely, shaking his head "President Hall, have you no decency? It is evident the poor man… no, Seraphim, is struggling not to drown himself in laughter like you almost did a moment ago when you heard the news."

Ratheen and Hall gaped while Rhianne merely arched an eyebrow "I believe Doctor Brackman just attempted humour for the first time in…" She looked off-screen "What was it again, Dostya?" A brief pause and some muffled noises later from Rhianne's end later "Dostya says she cannot remember the last time you employed humour." For a two hundred-some year old Elite Commander, that said a lot.

After getting over the shock, Hall continued "So, the issue remains, should we crush these Colonials right this moment or…"

"…Wait until they expend themselves sufficiently, providing our ship crews with target practice? I like the way you think, President Hall." Ratheen stroked his mandibles thoughtfully. "Great minds think alike."

"I was thinking the same, if they are no real bother to us right now we shouldn't bother swatting them until they come again, in the meantime, we should be preparing for the Reapers… After all, the ETA on the next Colonial attack is about five to six years away, the Reapers might be a lot closer." Rhianne nodded in agreement to the other two's words.

"Oh yes, I quite agree, quite agree." Brackman's hologram spoke "Before you inquire, I should tell you we have not acquired any real actual data from Sovereign's pieces, a pity, truly a pity… we are decrypting what we have right now, and suffice it to say that Dostya laughed her ass off for quite some time after the technicians revealed to her what the data was."

"So what was the data?"

"I'm not telling you…" Brackman actually grinned mischievously, which was positively alarming.

"Doctor, that's just annoying…"

* * *

_Seraphim II, Palace of the Illuminate, December 7, 3868_

While the three males were irritating each other, or rather, Brackman was teasing the other two, Rhianne arched an eyebrow toward the second set of holo-screens she had in front of her. "Really, Dostya?"

"Yeah, I did do quite a lot of laughing" the raven-haired woman shrugged "After all, when Doctor Brackman tells you what it was, you'll laugh too."

"It appeared at the time to be… a set of recipes downloaded form Asari and Turian space, that was the only bit of uncorrupted data, other than Gabriel Tosh and Saren Arterius being named as helpers of the Reapers. Though I must say the Asari dishes are quite amazingly similar to our own in name, ingredients and appearance… they even have ramen. Also, there was a list of lingerie from the Asari Republics and prices, also availability and other listings… gotta wonder what use a sentient starship would have for those."

The other leaders gawped at him before bending over in fits of laughter only stopped when Ratheen fell off his chair onto the floor with a loud thud. "I'm good!" He yelled, still laughing, and the others joined in as well, still chuckling at the idea.

Brackman then pulled up a diagram featuring Sovereign wearing a piece of lace with straps "I must admit, this thing does have curves;" awkward silence as the others' eyes bulged, holding back gales of laughter "however, I believe it utterly fails at being feminine, oh yes."

Hall was first to crack, with a sound like your average whoopee cushion his attempt to hold back laughter cracked, moments before the other three leaders joined him in laughing their collective asses off at the sheer absurdity of a Reaper adorned with a triangle of lace and strings. On Rhianne's end, the women were doing the same, right before Ariel dropped the bombshell "for the record, Benezia first thought of and made that image."

By the end of that particular mess, the leaders were wiping away tears from laughter, though Brackman simply decided not to let any appear on his holographic body. "Well, we need to discuss this 'Race'" he used air quotes "fleet that approaches the Sol system even now, oh yes…" a long, awkward pause later "is there something wrong?"

Avatar of War Rhiza blinked slowly "Since when have you been in the habit of making air quotes, sir?"

Brackman shrugged "Since Seth taught it to me… speaking of which, Seth, you've been pretty quiet on your end, how are things going?"

"Fine here, if something was up I would have said something." The Seraphim grumbled.

Hackett's comm. window grew in size as he spoke "By the way, sir, before you ask, things are fine on my end too, Mister President."

"That's always good to hear, Admiral." Hall nodded before Hackett nodded back and went back to arranging fleet elements and their patrol routes in various systems.

"Anyways, you should all be familiar with the reason why I learned air quotes from Seth…"

"We know, and for the record, you lose."

"Please don't tell me…"

"Well, you're going to lose the bet, scuttlebutt says Ivan and Thalia have been spending more and more time together recently since Seth pulled back from the Koprulu Sector for now. It's like they're attached at the hip, all it takes is a spark…" Hall said, eyes twinkling.

Brackman snorted "You do realize I already have one to one hundred odds stacked against me? I get a hundred times my bet from you guys if you all lose, but if I lose I only have to pay up my original bet, and you should know that being on the job for over 1300 years adds up to a lot of savings, despite the absurdly low interest and high taxes on the savings… but mark my words, I'd rather my son marry an Asari than a relative of Kael's."

"But they're SOOOOO PERFECT for each other!" Hannah and Ariel cooed at once.

Hackett and Seth shared a look in the holo-screens "I have heard, and some things… can never be un-heard…" They both spasmed their heads to one side and held it there, trembling as if in a seizure for a moment. "I do NOT want to hear those two make that sort of sound again."

"That makes two of us." Seth said, his mandibles twitching in agitation.

Hannah Shepard kept gushing, specifically to deepen the discomfort of the two males of the Elite Four "Still, have you seen the way they talk to each other all the time? The way they look into each other's eyes whenever they exchange words, the way he held her close when her brother Jaran had to go into surgery to stop his disease? The way they fit into each other when they embrace. I still remember the look on Thalia's face when she fell asleep in training once, in the mess hall, and Ivan simply shifted so she would be more comfortable on his shoulder before continuing to let her sleep." Her eyes were misty and she had a wide, goofy grin on her face.

Brackman had summoned a holographic pillow to hold over his holographic head with his holographic hands, but it was just getting to be too irritating, all this mushiness from one of the top Cybran commanders. "Please, no more…" the old, old doctor actually _squeaked_.

"You are a sadist, aren't you, Hannah?" Ariel asked, tilting her head inquisitively.

"Yes, yes I am."

"Well let's not forget that we're sadists too…" Rhiza and Dostya grinned at each other in their synchrony as the ten people held the holo-conference with their own viewpoints represented by screens before them akin to first-person shooters where every other person's hologram was rendered in a particular part of the conference room. It helped with eye contact and such. Dostya sighed "I still remember that time when Ivan fell asleep under a tree in the park near the CGC, Thalia had been playing with Ivan's hair while he was asleep, his head in her lap, and when Dominic walked up, about to tease them, he'd received a shushing motion from the young Aeon and been sent off on his way… it was SOOOOO sweet…"

Rhiza showed her sadism by "And how about all those times Dominic would try to get them to make a move on one another or how jealous Ivan seemed when Dom went out on a 'date' with Thalia…"

"Dominic made a move on Thalia?" The holographic pillow had apparently vanished since Brackman was no longer thinking of it or needing it. "Alright everyone, pay up, you've lost."

"Not so fast, Doctor, Dominic only took her out to dinner to try to persuade her that Ivan had a thing for her. I remember actually shedding tears and sniffling when I watched her biting her lip before answering the question 'You want him, he wants you, your interests are shared, your personalities both reinforce and complement one another's, what the hell are you waiting for?' Her answer was something along the lines of the fact that though the Kael family was struggling to get out of the shadow cast over it by Evaluator Kael back in the Seraphim War, this wasn't the way to do it. She wouldn't use Ivan like that, and he deserved someone who's not going to attract so much ridicule and dislike from others who still carried a grudge from the Wars. It was absolutely the sweetest thing I have ever heard in my life…" Rhiza sniffed and dabbed at her eyes, brushing some of her teal hair out of the way.

Rhianne rolled her green eyes "Well, now that we have thoroughly annoyed Doctor Brackman, perhaps we should get back to the matter of 'the Race'?"

Brackman seized the opportunity for a way out "Oh yes, perhaps we should, remember the bet rules, guys, no interfering in my son's affairs!"

"Except by assigning them to the same unit and missions all the time?"

"Yeah, except that. Anyway, I'm suggesting we force the Race fleet into orbit around Jupiter… I don't feel like destroying them."

"It seems we are all of us here great minds." Rhianne said dryly.

Dostya nodded "Indeed, for we all think alike."

* * *

A/N: This concludes the first section of Supreme Commander: The Thirteenth, the next section (Chapters 6 onward) will be set after SupCom: ME 2. In the meantime, be on the lookout for WorldWar: Supreme Balance.

For the record, yes, this is hot off the printing press, please feel free to point out any corrections I missed (I write and edit at the same time, but I still miss things once in a while) by PM.

REVIEW!


End file.
